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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap Copyright Xo. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 




f> 




George A. Lofton, D.D. 



Ifoavp of %tfc, 

lite Ibarmonies Bn& 
♦.Discorbs*, 



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GEO* A. LOFTON, D, D. 

(Author of "Character Sketches.") 



♦Zffe lifte a Dome of man^coloteo glass, 
Stains tbe wbfte raofance of eternity" 

J. R. FLORIDA & COMPANY, 
NASHVILI.E, TENN. 

* 



CCT171&99 



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43740 

Copyrighted, 1896, by 

GEORGE AUGUSTUS LOFTON. 

All rights reserved. 

TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 




SECOND COPY, 



S~o ^U o 



l^ \o. 



Preface. 



Harp of Iyife: Its Harmonies and Discords, like "Character 
Sketches," its predecessor, is the result of odd moments and off- 
hand efforts in the thought and work of pastoral life. After the 
manner of "Character Sketches" this volume follows, not as a 
sequel, but as the continued development of Sunday afternoon 
lectures with chalk and charcoal illustrations during- the years of 
the author's pastorate in the City of Nashville. Thousands came 
to hear these lectures; and after thousands had read the first 
volume published in "Character Sketches," there was a repeated 
demand for the publication of another volume along- the same 
line of thoug-ht and caricature. The present volume is published 
in answer to this demand; and although it has sometimes proven 
dang-erous to write a second book upon the same line it is hoped 
that this volume affords something- new and fresh in the presen- 
tation of subjects which, though familiar to all, are dressed up 
in a new garb which may attract the attention and catch the in- 
terest of the reader, young and old, learned and unlearned, white 
and black and of every condition. 

"Character Sketches" received many favorable and compli- 
mentary notices at the hands of the press — at the hands of the 
learned and the unlearned — but the author's greatest pleasure 
was aroused by the oft repeated criticism of the children, the 
young and, not infrequently, the colored people who read and re- 
read the book, and who claimed so much delight and edification. 
So of hundreds of ministers of all denominations who congratu- 
lated the author upon his work and blessed him for the pleasure 
and profit which his book had given. If only the "Harp of Life" 
may reach the circulation and do the good of "Character 
Sketches" the author will be grateful to God and satisfied with 
his humble effort. With confidence this volume is thus hopefully 
sent forth on its mission of good. 

As in the former work, the pictures which illustrate this vol- 
ume were drawn by the author in the use of chalk and charcoal; 
but, as heretofore, he wishes to disclaim any merit as an artist.. 
He hereby disarms all criticism on this line by saying that he is' 

(5) 



6 PREFACE. 

not an artist, and only draws pictures, such as they are, to illus- 
trate his subjects and so help the eye to catch the thoug-ht which 
he speaks to the ear. Nor does he claim any great literary merit 
in the production of these sketches as printed and published. 
They were thrown out in the casual and off handed efforts to in- 
struct and do good to those who came to hear and learn; and the 
hope of the author lies not in any fame he may g"ain as artist or 
writer, but in the g-ood his work may do in the name of Christ 
and for the sake of humanity. Geo. A. L. 

Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 8, 1896. 



<»§(§Si||t^ 



...CONTENTS... 



PAGE. 

1. Harp of the Soul . 11 

2. "No Good".. ...... 18 

3. Let Your Light Shine 29 

4. Dust ., 39 

5. Saw Wood and Say Nothing 46 

6. Nose to the Grindstone "..'. 57 

7. Spades are Trumps 64 

8. Monkeying 75 

9. No God . .. ...... . 85 

10. Pie 92 

11. The Old Field School 102 

12. Cut off the Nose to Spite the Face 112 

13. A Pastor's Trials 123 

14. Feeding Pigs on Diamonds 130 

15. The Spectre of Lost Opportunities 141 

16. Counting Noses. 148 

17. Ant'ny Over 158 

18. Our Shadows 168 

19. Before and After Marriage 178 

20. Little Jugs . . . , 197 

21. Sweep Before Your Own Door , 204 

22. The World, the Flesh and the Devil 215 

0) 



8 CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

23. Taffy 225 

24. The Moss-back 235 

25. Whitewash 245 

26. Kissing 257 

27. The Egg of Unbelief 264 

28. Down Grade 275 

29. The Bore 285 

30. Chickens Come Home to Roost 292 

31. Living in Glasshouses and Throwing Stones 303 

32. The Gang 313 

33. Shooting Dead Ducks 320 

34. Death in the Pot 331 

35. Laziness 338 

36. Honest Sweat 351 

37. Ignorance, Predjudice, Bigotry 358 

38. Stinginess 368 

39. Murder Will Out 380 

40. Wonders of Sleep 391 

41. The Sabbath and Marriage 398 

42. Feeding on Wind 406 

43. My Standard 417 

44. Sampson's Seven Locks 425 

45. The Fools . . 432 

46. The Tripple Alliance 443 

47. Ox in the Ditch 453 




HAJRP OF THE SOUL. 



Harp of the Soul 



i> TpHE soul is a harp of a thousand strings. It is 
^ strung- with every chord of sense and sentiment, 
passion and principle, grace and attribute of our 
nature. It is tuned at will, swept by the inspiration 
of motive and purpose, thrummed by the fingers of 
thought. Different people differently play upon this 
harp. One is ever on the bass, another is ever on 
the tenor; while others sweep back and forth with 
the harmony of a thousand variations. There are 
those again who alternate between melody and med- 
ley, accord and discord, while others still, it is said, 
no music ever give upon the soul's immortal lyre. 
Of such the great poet drew the picture when he 
wrote these words: 

"The man that hath no music in his soul, 
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
Is fit for treasons, stratag-ems and spoils; 
The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 
And his affections dark as Erebus; 
I^et no such man be trusted." 

At times we all play more or less rudely upon this 
harp of immortality; and it requires the same culture 
to play upon the internal as upon the external instru- 
ment. No untutored hand, without extraordinary 
or abnormal genius, can sweep the strings of the 
lyre with even the simplest strain of melody, and 
the masterpieces of composition can only be repro- 
duced upon any instrument after years of study and 

(ii) 



12 HARP OF LIFE. 

practice. The sublime harmonies and variations of 
Haydn and Handel are the effusions of genius and 
labor original to lofty spirits, and those who are 
alone able to copy, or follow along the airy nights 
where they soared, must first tread the path of dili- 
gence and toil attuned to the inspiration and ambi- 
tion which develop the musical faculties and elements 
of our being. It is only when culture has reached 
its noblest pitch in the music of the soul that genius 
can bring out, with grandest effect, the otherwise 
undeveloped capacities of our lyrical nature. What 
is true of music in the physical and artistic sense is 
true of the spiritual and immortal; and that mag- 
nificent instrument which God has placed in these 
mortal bosoms must be strung and tuned and swept 
with a culture and a practice which alone can make 
the music of life melodious, harmonious, varied, lofty 
and effective for good. Without the drill and inspira- 
tion of such culture and practice man would play, 
at best, but a sorry piece upon God's exquisite harp 
of the soul, manufactured not only for use in time, 
but for the conservatory of heaven, where angels 
harp and where saints join in the everlasting hallelu- 
jahs of praise to God. 

Everybody — everything in creation, subjective and 
objective — plays a part upon the harp of every soul. 
We are all musicians of some sort in accord or dis- 
cord with God and nature; and not only in the realm 
of the true, the beautiful and the good, but in the 
sphere of the false, the hideous and the bad, every* 
body and everything touch the strings of our harj 
either to make or mar the melodies of life and im* 
mortality. The minstrel and the bard, the poet and 



HARP OF THE SOUL,. 13 

the philosopher, the painter and the sculptor, the ar- 
chitect and the builder, the philanthropist and the 
religionist — all who think and feel and live that 
which pleases and makes happy, which inspires and 
makes better, which exalts and makes purer the 
hopes and aspirations of mankind, which harmonizes 
us with God and conscience and record, set to music 
all the strings of the soul for good; and everybody 
and everything to the contrary only vibrate with 
the confusion and disharmony of discord and evil 
upon the harp of our being. The Bible is the great 
notebook from which the soul catches its noblest 
strains; and nature to the student and lover of the 
true, the beautiful and the good affords a thousand 
touches and variations to the immortal masterpiece 
of the saint who thrums his lyre with the sympho- 
nies of heaven. Every bird and beast and flower and 
tree and stream and vale and mountain and star and 
sunbeam that join in the chorus of the spheres to 
the praise of the glory of God, but swell the refrain 
of life's holiest measures, as the soul is purely touched 
by nature; and every idea and emotion and impulse 
which spring from the bosom of thought and in- 
spiration are but the throbs of energy and the thrums 
of action by which this Harp of the Soul is swept 
with reason, or swayed with passion, good or bad, 
holy or unholy. 

But never was there a harp so delicately and dan- 
gerously strung or adjusted! How often unstrung 
or out of tune! How easy to change its chords or 
sever its notes! Sometimes it plays from grave to 
gay, from sublime to ludicrous, from virtue to vice, 
from love to hate, from hope to despair; and often 



14 HARP OF LIFE. 

madness takes the place of reason as the fingers of 
passion and appetite sweep the string's with rude 
and violent energy. To-day we may play softly and 
sweetly as the soul is attuned to God and good; to- 
morrow we may play harshly and madly as the heart 
may be touched by the afflation of Satan and evil. 
Now, Shakespeare and Byron and Pope and Moore 
write like angels; yet again, they sing like demons. 
The chords on the harp of the soul are double and 
reverse as it is strung with opposite emotions, pas- 
sions and desires; and nothing short of the Divine 
Spirit can inspire and harmonize and keep consistent 
the music of the soul. Even with religion the chords 
of the flesh clash with the chords of the Spirit; and 
sometimes the discord of hell drowns the accord of 
heaven. Sometimes love turns to lust, magnanimity 
to meanness, liberality to covetousness, virtue to vice, 
equanimity to depression; and the soul that benignly 
praises to-day, may forget and curse to-morrow — as 
did Peter when he pledged fidelity and then denied 
his Lord. Hate and love can only be in accord when 
we love that alone which should be loved and vice 
versa hate that alone which should be hated; and so 
of all the other opposing passions which have been 
placed in our bosom, not to be in conflict, but in equi- 
poise and for the maintenance of our moral equilib- 
rium amid all the clash and contest of the soul with 
the difficulties and duties of life. 

The importance of training the soul to the con- 
sistency of the music of its own lyre is seen in the 
force of habit By way of illustration: We have 
been told that the nerves are the tracks of habit 
which, through the senses, convey fixed impressions 



HARP OF THE SOUL. 15 

upon the brain; and hence the nerves have been beau- 
tifully and significantly called the "harp of the 
senses.'' Drunkenness and lust and avarice and 
pride and ambition and hate and envy and jealousy 
and the like can be indulged along these lines to the 
brain and the heart until they become ruts so deep 
and long- worn that they can never be changed; and 
therefore the possibility of that fixedness of character 
and destiny by habit which can never be reversed 
when once formed. Hence, let us remember as we 
play on our harp of a thousand strings, so shall we 
continue to play hereafter and forever. The melody 
we sweep on the soul's great lyre at the grave will 
be the one we shall everlastingly play in hell or 
heaven. Beware of the "nerve tracks" in the devel- 
opment of every physical indulgence through the 
senses; and beware of the long-strung chord in the 
harp of the soul upon which you have thrummed the 
music of life. Let the time be perfect and let the 
melody be divine; and as you play for time, let your 
instrument be strung for eternity. In the hereafter it 
will be too late to change your song or tune your harp 
to any other lay than that of your minstrelsy in this 
present world. 

There are those who seem to play upon a single 
string in life. The avaricious or miserly soul never 
touches any note save that of the ring of the ' 'al- 
mighty dollar. ' ' The libertine never hears any strain 
but the syren song of lechery or lust; and the notes 
of this song quiver and vibrate upon the chords of 
his harp until every twang of virtue and twinge of 
conscience are hushed and dead. The drunkard sees 
no beauty save in the glow of the wine cup and hears 4 



1G HARP OP LJFE. 

no melody save in the bacchanalian revel; and all the 
harmonies of home and honor and hope are lost in 
the awful and discordant gurgle and swirl of de- 
bauchery and ruin. So of the man whose harp 
clangs alone with the harsher thrum of hate or envy 
or despondency or pride or ambition, which drives 
out or encompasses all the accordant and sweeter 
elements of a better and loftier nature. He plays 
chiefly upon one of the thousand strings of his splen- 
did harp, and instead of varying and harmonizing 
the music of life to the whole, he tunes and bends 
the whole grand combination to the dull and monoto- 
nous and baneful twang of a single string diverted 
and opposed to the consistency and purpose of his 
instrument. 

So also of some who play to the strain of the true, 
the beautiful and the good. They seek to create the 
melody of life upon a single chord, and either neg- 
lect the other strings or tune them all to harmonize 
with his single lay. This is the one-idead man, per- 
haps the crank, who is always singing the same old 
song, or playing the same old tune, until everybody 
tires of his performance. None but a Paganini can 
play upon a single string and vary his tune. The 
music of life is not a single piece,, nor a medley of 
pieces, strung together when we live to a great pur- 
pose. It is, or ought to be, a grand variation in har- 
mony — a magnificent diversity in unity; and the harp 
of the soul should be so strung and tuned as to fit 
the magnificent combination. Whatever the part 
we play as preacher, lawyer, doctor, merchant, me- 
chanic, farmer or tradesman, it should be in touch 
with every other man's minstrelsy; and not only so, 



HARP OF THE SOUL,. 17 

but our harp should be so tuned and played as to 
join in every good and perfect part played in the 
world's concert, according to the capacity and com- 
pass of the instrument upon which we play. 

Finally, let us remember that life is the music of 
the soul whatever part we play in the great concert. 
This life when transferred to heaven will be the per- 
fection of music where angels and saints are repre- 
sented, above all, as praising and glorifying God. 
All that life will be love; and love is the highest and 
holiest expression of the soul's music. That is the 
chief chord and keynote of music hereafter; and he 
who plays to that note and upon that chord here will 
be best fitted to join in the everlasting chorus of the 
skies. He who never played on that chord here will 
never play in heaven. 

A harp once hung upon the walls of an old castle. 
The strings were broken and rusted; no one knew 
to whom it belonged or for what purpose it hung 
there. One day a stranger entered the hall, took 
down the harp, dusted the instrument and reset the 
broken strings. Then were hearts thrilled by his 
magic touch as he swept the chords. It was, the 
legend says, the long absent master w T ho had returned 
to his castle. So, many a Christian has long ceased 
to play on " The Harp of the Soul.'' It has grown 
dusty; its strings are broken or out of tune; but Christ 
can come in again and tune the strings and touch 
them with the melodies of heaven. Reader, how is it 
with the harp of your soul? 



No Good* 

6 6T\A7'HO is that well-dressed, fine-looking- fellow 
V v standing in front of the hotel?" "That is^ 
Col. Thos. Jefferson Mills— he's no good. ' ' ' 'What's 
the matter with him?" "Why, he's a dead beat, 
the biggest liar in the community, and you can't de- 
pend upon him for anything. I tell you he's no 
good" — and so my informant goes on to the end of 
the chapter in "doing up" the elegant looking coloneL 

I had an introduction one day to a robust, rosy- 
cheeked gentleman in good attire, with a clerical coat, 
and full of good manners, fine address and splendid 
conversation. He passed the compliments of the 
season and retired. "Who and what is he?" I 
asked of my friend when he was gone. "Why, 
don't you know the Rev. Dr. B. Franklin Swan- 
son? He's no good, however, though a clever- 
hearted and accomplished fellow. Unfortunately 
he drinks whiskey, is very fond of ladies, and is al- 
ways beating about on his cheek and letters of intro- 
duction, of which he has a hat full from most of the 
leading clergy of the country. He preaches w T ell, 
but he jumps the boarding houses and dodges his 
tailor's bill, and a man who preaches one thing and 
practices another is no good, you know." 

"That is rather a hard-looking case," I remarked 
one day, as a stout, burly looking man in seedy 
clothes and tangled beard passed down on the other 

(18) 



NO GOOD. 21 

side of the street. "Oh, that's Bill Adkins, he's no 
good. He won't work nor take care of his family, 
although he is a fine mechanic and can get good 
wages. He is always begging and borrowing around 
town; and about all he does is to press brick — with 
his feet — to no purpose." 

I don't know how often I hear it said of men and 
women, boys and girls, black and white, "NO 
GOOD!" Sometimes the "N. G." placard is tied 
upon the back of an individual in a bad, as well as an 
indifferent sense, implying a bad body as well as a 
nobody, but the expression has become very common 
and characteristically cutting in its application. It 
is about one of the most significant and keen-edged 
criticisms which can be passed upon a man's or a 
woman's character; and although exceedingly terse 
and laconic, it is "enough said" when somebody says 
of you, "No Good!" So severe and comprehensive 
is the characterization that when one man says, "No 
Good" of another, you ask no further questions but 
hurry about your business; and this little critical 
short-cut is but an illustration of the rapid and prac- 
tical age in which we live. We have no time to cir- 
cumlocute or perambulate about anything or any- 
body; and the most modern method of disposing of a 
bad or indifferent thing is to cry, "No Good," and 
move on. Even if the expression should be slander- 
ous it is too new in its coinage for legal vernacular; 
and hence there is no statute covering the case at 
present. 

It is a most irritating thing to have one say, "No 
Good" of you, because, while the significance of the 
expression is pungent and vigorous, yet it is lacerat- 



22 HARP OF LIFE. 

ingly indefinite and intangible. You know what the 
fellow means who says it, but you could never reach 
him in a court of justice unless he should define him- 
self, the very thing which "N. G." was invented to 
obviate. "No Good" — that's enough! You needn't 
say a man is a thief, a liar, a dead beat, or a vagrant, 
or a hypocrite, or any other sort of a villain. The 
"No Good" appellation leaves you to infer anything 
you please out of a dozen things of which a man 
may be guilty; and it is provided in a general. and 
quick way to dispose of a man's character without 
further particulars — and you can just imagine what- 
ever suits you, since you know that something is 
wrong. It means this when said of a man: "Let 
him alone — don't touch him with a forty- foot pole — 
he won't do — and don't ask me any further ques- 
tions;" and if there is any other method or designa- 
tion by which to more effectually annihilate a fellow- 
being in the estimation of another, I know nothing 
of it. If you stigmatize your neighbor by the name 
of some vice or crime, he will be apt to hear of it, 
and he may defend himself; but he never hears the 
"N. G." that is whispered of him. It is stuck upon 
his back and he never sees it, while everybody else 
is reading it. 

Of all the stigmas by which a human being is 
marked, in general, I think this is the most contempti- 
ble. Even from the standpoint of indifferency I 
should despise to be called "No Good." I had about 
as soon do something for which to get into the peniten- 
tiary as to have that appellation. Call me almost 
anything, but don't call me "N. G." It is the stigma 
of infamous negation, the blight of nothingness and 



NO GOOD. 23 

nobody labeled and placarded with human contempt, 
if it is not something positively bad and vaguely de- 
nominated by a leprous advertisement to the world 
which makes all men beware of you and cry, "Un- 
clean! unclean!" Oh, if I am a good-for-nothing do- 
nothing, a dead beat or bummer, a scoundrel or a 
moral lazar, call me by name, but please don't tack 
upon my back the loathsome and abhorrent initials 
of character called "N. G " for everybody to read 
but myself. I heard a man speak of a minister, one 
day, as a good man. "Yes," said another, "he is 
good for nothing." "Good Lord have mercy," I 
thought to myself, "did anybody ever say that of 
me?" and I have always felt that I wanted to die 
when I reached the "N. G." department of human 
life. 

The truth is that the world, whether it practices 
it or not, has a very acute conception of the article 
we call "GOOD;" and I have been so impressed of 
late years with the idea that I have fallen into the 
habit of asking my brethren and friends when I meet 
them: "Are you doing any good?" Cut bono? 
What good? Aye, that is the question of all ques- 
tions; and it is not to be wondered at when the qual- 
ity of good is wanting, or lost, in a man that the 
world pins upon his back the worthless designation, 
"No Good." The truth is, the man who is doing no 
good is, by negation, doing harm; and when you say 
"No Good" of him you are stigmatizing him with 
evil, whether he is doing positive wrong or not. Truly 
did Christ say: "He that is not with me is against 
me, and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth 
abroad." There is no neutral nor negative ground 



24 HARP OF LIFE. 

upon which human responsibility can place its foot; 
and he that serves not God and his fellow man with 
the best he can do is a robber, as much so as if he 
took by violence what did not belong- to him. 

When we look abroad into the world, what a mul- 
titude of people, both negatively and positively, of 
whom it may be said, "They are no good!" Of 
course everybody says of the criminal and vicious 
classes, "No Good;" but, heavens alive, what about 
the so-called good people? There is a preacher in 
the pulpit who, with all his high position and oppor- 
tunities, does but little or no good; and there are 
whole churches with every talent of wealth, intelli- 
gence and social position upon which, preacher, dea- 
cons, members and all, you might tack the placard 
of everlasting contempt: "No Good!" In the pews 
of our churches sit millions of professors — hoping to 
escape hell and get to heaven — who do no good for 
missions, education or for a single denominational 
enterprise; and often in these pews sit wealth, ge- 
nius and distinction, actually prostituted to avarice, 
lust, ambition, pride, and to every other baser pas- 
sion and appetite of depraved and degraded human 
nature. Over half, by far, of our church member- 
ship is the fruitless fig tree which Jesus Christ 
cursed and withered and damned as leafless and fig- 
less forever, because it was "No Good." Nothing 
but leaves! nothing but leaves! Oh, when I stand 
before the judgment seat of Christ, let me not stand 
there with a hand full of withered leaves. I had 
rather make a thousand mistakes and blunder and 
stumble all the way to heaven, trying to do all the 



NO GOOD. 25 

good I could, than to carry nothing* to the feet of 
Jesus Christ. 

All that a man's life and record will be worth in 
eternity will be the good he has done for God's glory, 
and for Christ's sake, and for the unselfish benefit of 
his fellow man; and, if it were possible, the most 
contemptible appearance we can imagine at the bar 
of God will be the presentation of a redeemed saint 
who had never given or done anything for the glory 
of God or the good of his fellow beings. I had al- 
most as soon go to the devil as to go to heaven with 
"N. G." pinned upon my back — if such a thing were 
possible; and yet I do not see how some church mem- 
bers can ever escape such a record and designation, 
if they ever get to glory. I know that all are saved 
by grace, through faith, and that not of ourselves, 
not of works, lest any man should boast; but if works 
are the fruit and evidence of a living and saving faith, 
what claim have some people to Christianity, and 
what hope have they of ever reaching heaven? What 
good are they in this world, and what good have 
they done? It can only be said of multitudes of 
them: "No Good;" and if they ever reach the glory 
of God in eternity, it will be simply and solely upon 
the ground of being "saved so as by fire" — a kind 
of salvation I would not presumptuously risk nor 
surely covet. 

I thank God for the incidental and accidental good 
a great many do who are otherwise no good to the 
world. There is no reward for such a good hereafter, 
but God not only overrules evil for good, but he util- 
ises the selfishness of some people for good when they 
would otherwise do no good at all. The world prints 



26 HARP OF LIFE. 

papers, publishes books, builds cities, extends rail- 
roads and telegraph lines, carries on commerce and 
makes money and in a thousand ways works into the 
hands of God for the evangelization and education of 
mankind; and it is often true that the worldling does, 
in his way, more liberally and abundantly for Christ 
than the church members. Out of the eater comes 
forth meat, and out of the strong comes forth sweet- 
ness. God will get his work in whether his people 
do the good they should or not; and alas, many of us 
will let some other man take our crown when we re- 
fuse or fail to press for the prize of eternal honors. 
God forbid that I should live and die and go to the 
judgment NO GOOD. 





LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE. 



Let Your Light Shine, 



IT T IS said that one night in a village where there 
^ were no lamps, a gentleman met a blind man with 
a lantern in his hand. Happening to know him, he 
asked the man why he, being blind, carried a lan- 
tern. "To keep others from stumbling over me," 
he replied. 

I have always thought of this illustration as being 
most applicable to the Christian. If for no other rea- 
son in the world, he should let his light shine to keep 
the world from stumbling over him into perdition. 
There is abetter and a more positive reason than this: 
We should let our light shine — keep our lamp trim- 
med and burning in order to light the footsteps of a 
lost world to Christ; but even negatively it is a good 
thing if nothing more through this dark world to let 
our light shine in order that no sinner shall stumble 
over us into an endless hell. We are not blind, as 
the man in the picture is, but we are traveling to 
eternity through the benighted valley of sin and 
death. All around us are blinded multitudes grop- 
ing their way in darkness at midday; and among 
them are false lights, ig-nes fatui of a thousand de- 
lusions, leading them to destruction. The glare of 
Satan's lurid lamps only blinds the eye to the horri- 
ble pit beneath and to the sunlit sky of God above; 
and if ever there was a solemn and awful reponsi- 

(29) 



30 HARP OF LIFE. 

bility upon the Christian more weighty and fearful 
than another, it is that he let his light shine. 

Jesus Christ, who was "the light of the world," 
and in the glow of whose lamp we become illumin- 
ated, emphasized this duty to his disciples when he 
said, "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is 
set upon a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light 
a candle and put it under a bushel (nor under a bed), 
but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all 
that are in the house. Let your light so shine be- 
fore men that they may see your good works and 
glorify your Father who is in heaven." He first 
said that the Christian is the ''salt of the earth" — 
the saving and preserving power of Christianity — 
but He says more when He symbolizes His disciples 
as the illuminating force of His religion. The truth 
is that the world reads the Bible and interprets 
Christianity only in the light of our example and life 
— our conduct 'and character; and it is true to-day 
that without Christian influence, Christian effort, at 
winning the world would be fruitless. "Heal thy- 
self, physician," is always the reply of mankind to 
hypocrisy and inefficiency in us. 

About the darkest thing in the world is a Chris- 
tian who does not let his light shine. Jesus says: 
"The light of the body is the eye: if, therefore, 
thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of 
light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall 
be full of darkness. Therefore if the light that is 
in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" 
If you put out a man's eyes you close up the win- 
dows of the body and all the world is black to him. 
So long as he sees singly and straight every object 



I^ET YOUR LIGHT SHINE. 31 

is clear and he enjoys the infinite satisfaction of a 
good eye. Just so with the eyes of the soul, which 
are reason and conscience. Obscure these or put 
them out, and you have a soul all in darkness. The 
Christian who sees things doubly, or sees things 
mixed, or who sees through the medium of selfishness, 
pride, ambition, avarice or prejudice, fails in sim- 
plicity and singleness of heart to see Christ and his 
truth; and he not only becomes dark within himself, 
but he becomes opaque to everybody else that knows 
him. He is like the sun or the moon in an eclipse — a 
most startling and awful phenomenon to a sensitive 
and imaginative nature. The cows low, the sheep 
bleat and the chickens cackle when the sun goes into 
an eclipse: and it is no wonder that the world blas- 
phemes and cavils and croaks when a Christian gets 
eclipsed, gets the eyes of his reason and conscience 
dim or out, and gets to looking at things just as 
worldlings or sinners do. An evil eye in a Christian, 
a bad eye, produces the same effect within and with- 
out as in the darkest sinner in the world. 

Worse than all, it is a very easy matter for a Chris- 
tian to extinguish his light by bad conduct or by some 
misstep in his career. Alas! for a poor eagle with 
his wings clipped, or for a lion with his teeth and 
claws pulled out! What useless and helpless power! 
How many glorious men of God have been shorn of 
their influence by an indiscretion or by the indulgence 
of a vice, or perhaps a crime, as did David and Peter 
and Samson and Solomon and a host of others who 
have gone down ingloriously in history! They put 
out their light and the world has been stumbling 
over them into hell ever since. It is a dangerous 



32 HARP OF LIFE. 

thing- to climb to lofty heights, or to write golden 
pages, or to do prodigies of work and valor for 
Christ, and then fail or fall. But for the power of 
God to overrule evil and avert consequences it were 
better that such men had never entered the arena of 
the ministry or of signal service for Jesus Christ; 
and often for the sake of the cause and of personal 
and family reputation it had been better for some 
that they had never been known — that is to say, from 
all human standpoints of consideration. How sadly 
often we look upon disappointed, discouraged, broken- 
hearted men who have extinguished their lamp! 
They should be pitied more than despised; and to 
the extent possible they should be helped and not 
kicked lower down. None of us know what we 
might have been or done under like circumstances; 
and I have always noticed that those who were the 
most uncharitable to the lampless or fallen were 
either hypocrites or else cold-hearted, mean and self- 
ish in their professions of religion and in their pos- 
session of influence and character among men. 

Again, there is another class of Christians who, 
while they do not extinguish their light, put theft" 
lamp under the bushel of business, or under the bed 
of indolence. Good men and women some of them 
are, too, in many respects. When they were poor 
and had to hustle for a living they were humble and 
active in the service of Christ. They did not mind 
wearing jeans or calico, once, to church; and they 
came with their little ones to the prayer meeting and 
Sunday school. Yea, they used to read the Bible 
and pray in their families; and though, as yet, ob- 
scurity and poverty kept them from great influence 



LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE. 33 

in the world, still they let their little torch shine 
brightly wherever they went and in whatsoever 
they did. But business enlarged and money in- 
creased; and as better circumstances developed, 
pride, ambition and vanity crept in. After awhile 
the once fine gold seemed to go to dross; and as pros- 
perity developed, the candle got under the bushel of 
business, or shined only under the bed of indolence 
and indifference. Mother and father grew tired of 
the old church and the children got too proud to at- 
tend it. Spiritually the family religion went to seed; 
and the outcome of it all was that the church and 
the Sunday school liberality and devotion were either 
abandoned or else they sought quarters in some for- 
mal or fashionable church where congeniality and 
non-interference with the conscience could be more 
easily paid for and enjoyed. Oh! I do not know how 
many Christians, young and old, I have seen start 
off beautifully, "run well for awhile," shine with a 
blazing torch for a season and then put their light 
at last under the bushel of selfishness or under the 
bed of laziness. God forbid, and yet it is so with 
thousands. 

I have often been struck with the reply of the 
lighthouse keeper of Calais when asked the ques- 
tion: "Suppose some night your light should go out?" 
He started with horror and exclaimed: "Impossible 
for the light to go out in the lighthouse of Calais!" 
He detailed then the awful consequences if his light 
should be extinguished for one night. Ships, from 
every country beneath the sun, wrecked upon the inhos- 
pitable rocks of the English Channel or the Straits 
of Dover! "Impossible!" What a sense of awful re- 



34 HARP OF LIFE. 

sponsibility ! And this is the sense that should thrill 
and pulse through every Christian heart. "Let the 
lower lights be burning-" is the cry of humanity and 
of religion in view of a lost world continually ship- 
wrecked upon the merciless rocks of temptation, 
disaster and death. We never know who will be 
stranded and ruined upon the shores of death and 
eternity when our light goes out or is hid under the 
bushel or the bed. God help us to let our light 
shine and so shine that others seeing our good works 
shall glorify our God in Heaven. Let me close in 
the language of a poem I have written on this line 
and applicable to this sketch: 

The light of the world are the children of God, 
The salt of the earth and the strength of his rod; 
But Christ is the glory refulgent in grace, 
That a Christian reflects in the light of his face; 
As stars of the night that burn in the sun, 
And keep in the courses they steadily run. 

This world is all dark and the sinner is blind, 

Nor can he the way out alone ever find; 

And Christians are lamps on the broadway of gloom, 

The sinner to turn from his ill-fated doom; 

The light of the Christian is the glint of the sword, 

The Spirit inflashes, the might of his word. 

But few can discover the beauties of grace 
Untraced in the lines of the heaven-lit face; 
The child of the night cannot follow the way, 
Except by the star with its sun given ray; 
And few the immortals who shine in the skies, 
But lighted their torches in the lamp of the wise. 

Arise then, ye Christians, and shine with your lightr- 
The way is so rugged — and black is the night; 
For thousands are stumbling o'er virgins asleep, 
Unlighted their lamps, to the bottomless deep; 
And many their torches no signal have given 
To light a lost world to the haven of heaven. 



IvET YOUR LIGHT SHINE. 35 

"So shine" with your light that the worldling- may try 
Your works that are good, and your God glorify, 
Nor hide the bright lamp under bushel nor bed, 
Where luminous, useless its luster is shed; 
Extinguish it not by your lives nor your lips, 
For blackest of darkness is the Christian's eclipse. 

O Character sacred! thy banner unfurled! 

The robe of the Saviour, the light of the world! 

The Christian's example, the badge of his life, 

That points us to heaven through struggle and strife! 

But faded or blackened by failure or fall, 

The shroud of the convert, th' impenitent's pall! 

Alas! for the salt when the savor is gone! 
Though Christ and the Christian may ever be one: 
Alas! for the light when it ceases to shine! 
Though grace in the Christian may never decline: 
But devils will mock us, and worldlings blaspheme, 
And trample our efforts the world to redeem. 

The soul of the Christian no death ever know*, 

The dust of his body re-animate grows; 

But thoughts are eternal, whatever they've breathed, 

Our deeds are undying, with good or ill wreathed; 

And character parted no time can restore, 

Nor heaven reverse it — the record we bore. 

The wise are to shine as the firmament bright; 
And they that the many have turned to the light 
"Forever and ever," as stars shall they glow 
With jewels of glory they've gathered below; 
And high on His forehead, with clustering gem , 
Their treasures will circle the King's diadem. 

Then walk in the light with the garments of day, 

And arm with the light for the 'battle array; 

For Satan with light as an angel is garbed, 

To pierce with the arrows our errors have barbed; 

And Failure and Evil and Death in the night, 

Are strung with the trophies of Satan's dread fight. 

Oh! why should we falter, if robed in the light 
And panoplied strong in the armor of right, 
When one can a thousand with righteousness chase, 



36 HARP OF LIFE. 

And two put to flight with the light of their face, 
The hosts of the night, like the sun at the dawn, 
When darkness retreats at the glow of the morn? 

Immanuel's our Captain and triumph is sure, 

"When Zion is clothed in habiliments pure; 

He spoiled the Black Prince as he rose from the dead, 

And broke on the tomb his scepter so dread; 

And high o'er the ages His banner will wave, 

Till earth to His glory His power shall save. 




Dust. 



|NE thing- peculiar to city life is the nuisance of 
dust. We often get tired of rain and mud, but 
anything- is preferable to dust. It is said, after all, 
to be a factor in health as an absorbent of malaria 
and other atmospheric poisons; but it seems to me 
that slacked lime, carbolic acid, copperas and other 
disinfectants, from hygienic standpoints, would an- 
swer a better purpose than dust. Nevertheless 
many of our cities, and most of our people who live 
in them, prefer dust. At least they never sprinkle 
before their premises, nor will they pay you to do it 
for them. Some cities have instituted the plan of 
sprinkling- by taxation, as in St. Louis, Nashville 
and other places; and it is unquestionably the most 
economical method which can be adopted for the 
preservation of health, wealth and comfort to the 
people. Not only is dust an annoyance, and in some 
respects an unhealthy ingredient in lung troubles, 
but it is the most costly of many of our evils. It 
literally eats up clothing, shoes, hats, the paint ov 
our houses and despoils beauty by tanning the skin 
and injuring the eyes. The roofs of our buildings 
are rotted or rusted by it to no inconsiderable degree; 
and throughout our parlors, bed rooms and churches, 
it finds its way in large quantities. While its de- 
struction is going on outside, its ravages are but lit- 
tle less on the inside; and the expense of the brushes 

(39) 



40 HARP OF LIFE. 

is untold — the clothes brush, the paint brush, the 
broom and all the cleaning- apparatus employed by 
men. 

But aside from the merely material question of in- 
jury and expense there are many moral suggestions 
which dust presents for serious consideration. We 
are made of dust and unto dust must we return; and 
every time we see it rise, or g-et into its cloud, we 
are reminded that, sooner or later, some minister 
will be pronouncing" at our grave: "Earth to earth, 
dust to dust, ashes to ashes." Of course, we are 
also reminded by Long-fellow's beautiful Psalm of 
Life that 

"L<ife is real, life is earnest 

And the grave is not its g-oal: 
Dust thou art to dust returnest 
Was not spoken of the soul;" 

yet the admonition is one of the unpleasant reflections 
to most people in the world. It should not be so to the 
Christian who believes in the blessed doctrine of the 
Resurrection; for one of the sublimest truths of 
Christianity lies in the fact that this mortal shall 
put on immortality and this corruptible shall put on 
incorruption. Thank God for that beautiful country 
where there is no dust. Along* the g-olden streets of 
that city "which hath foundations and whose builder 
and maker is God," no storm of dust shall ever rise 
to soil the feet and the spotless robe of Christ, or to 
stifle the soul in a strug-gle for breath and existence. 

In heaven alone no dust is found, 
And there'll be no sweeping- there. 

Ag-ain we are reminded that people sometimes cast 
and throw mud at us in this life when we do wrong- 
or g-et into trouble — and even sometimes when we do 



DUST. • ' 41 

not. It is almost impossible to escape the dust of 
scandal and slander by the best men and women in 
the world, if indeed it is ever possible. Joseph and 
Paul and Christ did not escape being- soiled by the 
dust-casters; and what man or woman in history — 
whom do you know in all the realm of observation — 
who was ever anybody, or did anything- good or 
great, that was not spotted by somebody who knew 
how to throw mud, or kick up a dust? When boys 
can't find anything- else to do they gx> out into the 
streets and throw dust at each other. Their native 
element is dirt and dust; and they are not unlike 
many men and women, morally speaking-, whose very 
life is dirt— dusty, dirty, muddy work. They belong- 
to the "I told you so" fraternity; and they live on 
the perpetual outlook for their neig-hbor's failure or 
fall. Jealous and envious of everything* g-ood or 
great above them, or cherishing- reveng-e for every 
little slig-ht or wrong- done them, they g-loat over the 
opportunity to "raise a dust" upon the slig-htest oc- 
casion which offers for their gratification in your 
trouble or disgrace; and there is no escape from the 
dust of enmity or obloquy in this world. Thank 
God, dear reader, that one day you will be where 
there is no dust to raise, or fly; and remember that 
here below, whether the dust rises with the wind or 
not, there will always be somebody who will stir it 
up for you. 

Moreover, remember that the dust is an infallible 
developer of "grease spots" upon your character as 
well as upon your clothes. It is almost impossible 
to keep these spots off our garments, no matter how 
slean we keep, or how carefully we watch. Some- 



42 • HARP OF LIFE. 

times they are on your broadcloth before you know 
it; and you did not discover their presence till one 
day you came in out of the dust. You remember 
how you dusted, and washed them out with alcohol 
and ammonia, or other remedies for grease spots; and 
you would scarcely have known of their existence 
but for the dust. Herein, therefore, dust sometimes 
does g*ood, if we will only betake ourselves to soap 
and water; but a man is in a bad way who, when 
the dust develops his grease spots, will not resort 
immediately to the remedy of removal. This fact 
in the science of dust reminds us, too, that when we 
have grease spots upon our character we cannot af- 
ford to kick up a dust ourselves. We had better be 
quiet until we g-et rid of them. Alas! how often it 
is true that a poor fellow is forbidden to do many 
g-ood thing-s he would do if it were not for the spots 
upon him — likely to be shown up by raising- even the 
dust of effort; alas! too, when we are grease-spotted 
we dare not come in conflict with the world in doing- 
even gfood, because the world will then kick up a 
dust for us. 

One precious truth we learn is that when we g*et 
dust or mud upon us, so soon as w r e g-et into com- 
pany, our friends will always come up and brush it 
off. Our enemies will not. The same is true when 
our character is soiled. The only being- who will 
try to brush off the dust then is your friend; and by 
this you may always know who your friends are. 

There is another lesson, too, we may learn about 
dust. You can't g*o out into the world, or have any 
contact with the streets, without getting* your hands 
and faces soiled. When we come back home at noon, 



DUST. 43 

or at night, or get up in the morning", we have to 
wash our faces and hands; and this exercise has to 
be kept up as long as we live. Live how, or where 
we may, this fact is always true; and what is true 
physically is true morally. We come in contact every 
day with the world, and in spite of our purity and 
religion we will more or less get soiled with the dust 
of sin; and as we wash our faces and hands and 
bodies daily in water, so we have to wash our souls 
daily in that fountain filled with blood and drawn 
from Immanuel's veins. Some people claim exemp- 
tion from this curse of contact; they claim on this 
point that they have no use for the Lord's Prayer, 
which pleads for daily forgiveness as for daily bread, 
but this is not the record of Bible saints, nor of the 
greatest, best and most effective Christians in his- 
tory. It was not true of Job, David, Daniel, Peter, 
John, or Paul; and it was not true of such men as 
Luther, Carey, Judson, Bunyan, Knox and a host of 
the grandest men and women of God who have done 
most for God and the world. We ought not to sin, 
but I thank God for that Advocate with the Father, 
whose blood can daily cleanse us from the dust of 
iniquity. 

Not only do we come in contact with worldly dust, 
and have to wash daily from sin without, but the 
dust of sin comes from within. However clean 
swept our parlor, a ray of light will disclose a line 
of dust which shows that in every inch of space a 
thousand motes are in the air; and you may sweep 
the parlor every hour of the day, and the particles 
will still remain. If there were no dust without at 
all to get upon our faces and hands, there exudes 



44 HARP OF LIFE. 

from every pore of the skin the native dirt of our 
being" and constitution; and the water in which we 
wash indicates that every day we should have to in- 
dulge in an ablution to be clean from the internal filth. 
So with the soul. There is a perpetual warfare go- 
ing- on within between the members and the Spirit, 
and sometimes the flesh gets the master}^. Like 
Paul, when we would do good, often, evil is present 
with us and within us; and like the apostle we have 
often exclaimed, "O wretched man that I am! who 
shall deliver me from the body of this death?" After 
the inward man we delight in God's law; but the 
4 'carnal mind is enmity against God, not subject to 
his law, and neither indeed can be." There is no 
good thing in us; that is to say in our flesh; and 
though we lived in the perfect atmosphere of exter- 
nal purity, with no dust from the outside at all, we 
should have to wash in the blood every day to cleanse 
away the dust that exudes from the soul within. 

The only remedy for dust is sanctification. We 
grow in grace and knowledge and wisdom and 
righteousness and power every day; and, though we 
can never outgrow the dust, we can subdue it and keep 
it down more and more unto the perfect day when, 
both soul and body, we shall be redeemed from every 
touch of dust. We can keep on washing and sweep- 
ing, doing the best we can to keep out of the dust 
and to keep down the dust, and when we keep up 
this process of improvement and growth to the best 
of our ability, this is sanctification. So long as we 
live in this world, so long as we tabernacle in this 
old dusty, dirty body, we shall not be free from some 
taint of sin in our members; but the perpetual cul- 



DUST. 45 

ture of grace and knowledge will certainly, with age 
and experience, continue to decrease our tendency to 
sin and curtail the miseries of evil. The surren- 
der of the will to God, the control of thought and 
passion, the devotion of all we are and have to the 
cause of Christ, will finally so far conquer the world, 
the flesh and the devil as to give us Paul's shout of 
victory: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished 
my course, I have kept the faith;" and this will be 
enough for any of God's children who forget the 
things behind them and press for the future and the 
prize before them. 




Saw Wood and Say Nothing, 



*TpHE importance of keeping" your counsel and of 
^ driving away at your own business is the object 
of this sketch. "A still tongue makes a wise head," 
is an old and true adage; and where coupled with a 
vigorous and skillful hand it makes a successful life. 
To be sure, some people have still tongues without 
brains and without an}^ disposition to saw wood. 
The Sphynx on the Nile has never said anything, 
and has never done anything, except in silence to 
speak of the departed glory of a dead nation, and to 
stand as a monument to the folly of human pride and 
ambition. I am not talking about the silence of the 
Sphynx, or of the numbskull, or of the indolent, 
whose still tongue may take shape in a still hand. 
I speak of the man who is wise enough to keep his 
mouth shut when he ought to, and who, at the same 
time, puts his wisdom and his counsel to good ac- 
count in the successful operations of life. There 
are times when we ought to speak out and when si- 
lence would be criminal; but, in matters of impor- 
tance, there are not many who know just when and 
how and where to speak. The old admonition is a 
good one which says, "Beware of whom you speak, 
to whom you speak, and how and when and where." 
Especially is this true when you have a job of saw- 
ing wood to do which depends upon wisdom and pru- 
dence. 

(46) 




SAW WOOD, SAY NOTHING. 



SAW WOOD AND SAY NOTHING. 49 

One of the biggest fools in the world is the man 
who says everything- he thinks. You often hear 
people rather boast of their transparent honesty (or 
idiocy) in always bleating* out whatever comes to 
mind. They rattle away upon all occasions, tell 
everything* they know, and not infrequently make 
themselves ridiculous in the presence of common- 
sense people, or people of learning- and wisdom, by the 
too free expression of their ig*norance. A very g-ood 
rule, indeed, is to say nothing- and saw the wood of close 
attention and observation, where silence may learn 
and where a babbling tongue may betray the want of 
sense and information. It doesn't hurt to ask ques- 
tions under all circumstances; but it is ludicrously 
assinine in a young "Smart Alek," for instance, to 
play the role of a philosopher or a theologian in the 
presence of a scholar when he hasn't brains enough 
to form an opinion, or if he has he hasn't the infor- 
mation. And yet how often we are called upon to 
witness this exhibition of impudence and presump- 
tion between the ages of seventeen and twenty! Ba- 
laam's saddle horse should never speak unless th^ 
Lord opens his mouth by a miracle. A sixteen-year 
old girl or an eighteen year old boy often knows mor& 
than their grandfather did when he died at the agft 
of ninety; and as to father and mother, school mas 
ter or preacher, why, many of the youth of our day 
and generation regard them as old fogyism gone to 
seed upon all the vital questions of social etiquette, 
or moral or religious economy. 

It is simply marvelous how many people frame 
and express opinions upon all subiects and upon all 
occasions, who know nothing about what they be- 



50 HARP OF LIFE. 

lieve, or else get their opinions at second Hand; and 
3^et they draw nigh with their mouths where angels 
would tremble to tread, in the assumption of dogmas 
at the claim of which the profoundest wisdom would 
blush with modesty. Yet these people, with a strin- 
gency and tenacity born only of ignorance and preju- 
dice, are loudest and most blantant often in religion, 
politics, business and other questions which involve 
the wisdom and study of the greatest minds. It 
all comes of not listening in silence to all sides of a 
question, and of not sawing the wood of inquirer and 
observation. One secret of power is mystery, as in 
Gcd so in man. There must be a reserve force in 
the character and ability of every man which im- 
presses the world with as much or greater effect 
than the forces exerted in what we say or do; and 
this reserve force is the mystery behind the throne 
of every man's power over others. He who seems 
to exhaust himself in any effort of mind or body, 
however strong or great, leaves the impression of 
weakness and of being without any reserve of energy 
behind his attributes; and when you rob a man of 
the mystery of something left within, you rob him of 
that projectile force of character and ability which 
gives him greatest power over men. Take the man 
of a still tongue and who saws away at his wood — 
who keeps his counsel and does something all the 
while — and you will find a man about whom is this 
air of mystery which is born of reserve force. He 
doesn't speak everything he knows and he never ex- 
hausts his energies in effort; but he invariably car- 
ries weight in what he says and does which the 
exhaustive chatterer and worker never has. Like 



SAW WOOD AND SAY NOTHING. 51 

Napoleon he sits "in the solitude of his own origin- 
ality;' ' and with him to plan is to execute. The 
world is never impressed with, nor admires nor fol- 
lows the man it knows all about, or who, when he 
seems to have done his best, could not have done a 
great deal more. 

Again, to best achieve the ends of life there is 
much a man must do in the silence of his tongue and 
in the solitude of his thoughts. To accomplish 
much in our conflict with all the forces around us we 
must often saw wood and say nothing. Every man 
should play an honest game upon the chess-board of 
life with his fellows; but he dare not tell beforehand 
w r hat moves he will make to checkmate the world, the 
flesh and the devil in the contest for success. 

It takes wisdom, caution, patience and persever- 
ance to the end of every honest effort to succeed, 
where all the forces of cunning and evil are arrayed 
against you. You must think and plan, watch and 
pray, and say nothing in much you do; and when you 
do have to speak, know the how, the when and 
the where. The politician knows how to saw wood 
and say nothing save when the time comes to 
say something. The shrewd speculator lays his 
plans, watches his opportunities and projects his 
enterprises without publishing what he is going 
to do in the newspapers. The banker, the mer- 
chant, the manufacturer in the midst of compe- 
tition has his private marks and signals which 
none but he can read. The minister of the gos- 
pel dares not reveal all his secrets — "shoot off his 
mouth" — so to speak, on all subjects and all occa- 
sions, without purpose or plan, yet succeed. The 



52 HARP OP LIFE. 

general of an arnry cannot expect to write to his 
enemy what his plans of battle are, or the forces he 
will employ, and still hope to win the battle. 

Some people cannot keep a secret. There are 
some wives — thougfh not mine — to whom, in some 
thing-s, you do not dare to open your heart; and I 
want to say that whoever cannot keep another's se- 
cret cannot keep his own. I want further to say 
that whoever cannot keep a secret can never suc- 
ceed against competition or antagonism. No man, 
in all things, can play an open hand against enmity 
and opposition where a result of importance is to 
be achieved and when wisdom and counsel must be 
broug-ht into play; and in such a contest the man 
who cannot keep his own or the secrets of others, is 
at the mercy of every artful and wily foe. Jesus 
told his disciples to be as harmless as doves, but as 
wise as serpents. David would never have defeated 
Absalom if he had not managed to defeat the coun- 
sel of Hushai. Many a soul would have been 
lost if Paul had not been "all things to all men," 
and caught some of them by "guile." Sagfacity 
and tact must take thousands of men upon the blind 
side of prejudice and passion, in order to convert 
them to religion or utilize them in the achievements 
of business or professional life. In a multitude of 
things we have to saw wood and say nothing. 

Take the men in Congress and there are twc 
classes: those who do all the planning and work- 
ing and those who do all the talking. Those 
who saw the wood and say nothing do most of the 
good the county enjo} T s at the hands of legislation; 
and yet the brilliant and ornamental orator is not 



SAW WOOD AND SAY NOTHING. 53 

without his mission. He is the cracker upon the end 
of the congressional whip by which a question makes 
a noise and impresses itself upon those who hear and 
read, and it is but a means to an end, planned and 
projected, generally, by some man who says but little 
and keeps on at his work behind the dramatic scenes 
which are enacted upon the floor and before the coun- 
try. Talking- is very essential when it become neces- 
sary; but you must get the wood in the jack and saw 
away before and after the talking- begins. Preach- 
ing is absolutely essential to the proclamation of the 
gospel and to the conversion of sinners; but the 
preacher in the church which makes the most con- 
verts is the one which saws the most wood before 
and while the preaching goes on. Faith without 
works is dead, being alone, and so is preaching. 
Wherever you find the most private prayer and study, 
there you will find the most effective speaking and 
the most gracious results. 

The maxim, Saw Wood and Say Nothing, does not 
mean to teach that you are never to say anything, or 
to do nothing but saw wood. It means, however, to 
saw wood all the time, and only speak when speak- 
ing is necessary; and never to speak everything you 
think or know, essential to the silence of wisdom, 
prudence and plan. Right words fitly and timely 
spoken are pictures of gold in frames of silver. For 
instance, a soft answer turneth away wrath. An 
opportune admonition may save a soul. Words are 
the signs of our ideas — our ideas are the signs of the 
soul within — but that soul should never speak ex- 
cept through the windows of common sense, good 
ness and prudence. What a waste of words there 



54 HARP OF IvlFE. 

is! and How often are they but idle wind! and, wors^ 
than all, how often do they prove but the destructive 
whirlwind! Saw wood and say nothing- means this: 
Do your best with all your might; and when God 
and reason open your mouth, speak as of the oracles 
of God and of common sense. In religion attend to 
God's business as your own, with the golden silence 
of good example, and never let your tongue fly ex- 
cept for good. It would be good for some people in 
the world if they never said anything. Those who 
never saw any wood, generally, never say anything to 
any purpose. An idle tongue and an idle hand al- 
most always go together. Words to no profit usu- 
ally accompany a business to no profit; but it is often 
said that even a good wood-sawyer spoils his job 
with an unfortunate mouth. Let it not be so, dear 
reader, with you. Otherwise it had been better that 
you had been born dumb. It is, perhaps, unfortu- 
nate for some that they were born dumb; it seems 
unfortunate that some who can speak were not born 
so. 




Nose to the Grindstone* 



^TpHERE are a great many men in this world with 
•^ their noses to the grindstone. Some are always 
in the money press, and trodden like grapes under the 
feet of the wine squeezers. One man does his busi- 
ness at loose ends — doesn't keep his books straight 
nor doesn't watch the income or outgo of the 4 'littles, " 
which are essential to the economy of close and le- 
gitimate business. Another is generous and trustful 
of everybody, cannot say "NO" to the "dead-beat," 
and his accounts and collections keep a hiatus be- 
twixt them as wide and impassable as the gulf be- 
tween Dives and Lazarus. Still there are those, no 
matter how close they shave or how vigilant they 
watch their affairs, who are always "in a tight" for 
money. They just can't get along successfully in 
business. In other words, no matter however hope- 
ful or promising their prospects, no matter how in- 
dustrious or active their lives, no matter how near 
they seem to get to success, they never "get there." 
Again, there are poor fellows with fair ability and 
good resources who are always bound down by the 
burden of large and growing families, and it takes 
all that can be made to support them ; and their noses 
are perpetually to the grindstone because they are 
burdened through life with more than they can suc- 
cessfully bear. A man sometimes marries the whole 
family of his wife and then joins all of his own in 

5 (57) 



58 HARP OF LIFE. 

the same holy bans of matrimony; nothing but a 
self-made millionaire can stand that. 

The most pitiable object, however, is the poor 
young fellow in business with his nose to the grind- 
stone and his darling wife with her hand on the 
crank. George is a self-made young man, with ability 
and culture, just started in business and doing well. 
The first thing in his imagination was to capture 
Fannie, the society belle of the city; and Fannie's 
folks and Fannie herself conclude that George, who 
knows how to make and save money, is abetter catch 
than the wealthy dudes whose only qualification is to 
know how to spend and never make or keep a dollar. 
Fannie and her folks have sense, whether George 
has any or not; and when they are married George 
sets her up in the best style according to her, not 
his, circumstances. George adores his accomplished 
and beautiful Fannie, and Fannie admires and loves 
her noble George — but of course she expects him to 
rent the stone front, keep a spanking turnout and 
servants in livery, and run abreast of all the "swell 
blowouts" of her old circle in the social world. 
Fannie knows nothing about anything else; and she 
looks upon business as simply a means to the end 
of her butterfly existence. She did go to college, 
but she "quituated;" she did join the church, but 
she seldom goes there except on wedding occasions; 
and she never learned how to do anything or have 
anything done in the way of housekeeping or of a 
useful kind. 

Well now George is in for a nose-to-the-grindstone 
life. He never can save a dollar, no matter how en- 
ergetic his life or prosperous his business. In order 



NOSE TO THE GRINDSTONE. 59 

to keep Fannie and the home establishment in fash- 
ionable shape he toils and sweats and aches and rolls 
upon his bed at night; gets up early and comes late, 
and if it should almost kill him he would not say 
anything to Fannie about it. If he did she could not 
appreciate it, nor could she counsel with him in the 
stress of his affairs, much less could she afford to re- 
trench in the luxuries and refinements of her high 
life, to which George's circumstances are so dispro- 
portioned. As yet he would not for the world hint 
his troubles to his splendid wife. It would crush 
her pride, disappoint her ambition and lower her 
confidence in her husband. "Oh, no," says George, 
"I'll press onward and bear this burden of love," 
which after all is nothing more than a weak and un- 
manly sacrifice, based upon a foolish and cowardly 
fear of circumstances. He gets in close places and 
borrows money, and soon he gets to borrowing from 
Peter to pay Paul; and after awhile he gets to spec- 
ulating or gambling in the "bucket shop," and one 
day George goes to the wall, his nose ground off on 
the grindstone of fashionable tyranny, turned by the 
hand of a wife who never had the slightest concep- 
tion of responsibility in the relationships of married 
life. 

Good-bye, George; good-bye, Fannie, unless both 
of them can learn some sense and begin life at the 
little end of the horn, where George started, and not 
try to get into the big end without the normal course 
of experience and development toward the gradual 
swell of success. Sometimes such couples turn 
around, right about face, and redeem a life of folly; 
and yet sometimes, in spite of experience, George's 



60 HARP OF LIFE. 

nose is kept to the grindstone even in the effort to 
keep up the old "has been" appearances in poverty. 
I have seen people who, if they could, would borrow 
twenty dollars to give a supper and make a little 
social display, when in private they lived on corn- 
bread and turnip greens, and eked out a miserable 
existence of bumming- and beating in the business 
world. I met a well-dressed gentleman and his wife 
in New York City once — an F. F. V. couple — who 
with tears in their eyes, begged me for ten dollars, to 
help them in a board bill. They had gone, in former 
years, to the great metropolis of this country to shine 
in society and starve in business, and beggary was 
the outcome. Of all the poor, pitiful objects of 
charity upon earth, it is impecunious and shiftless 
aristocracy, or nobility, or blood that lives and dies 
with its nose to the grindstone in order to keep up 
appearances. It generally ends in that poverty and 
mendicancy which tries to put other people's noses 
to the grindstone in order to still bolster up that 
pauperized vanity in some people who think this 
world owes them a living, anyhow, for what they have 
been, if not for what they are. 

There are two classes of people in the world 
whose noses are always and of necessity to the grind- 
stone — the miser and the prodigal. The one hoards 
for self, the other spends for self, and both are ani- 
mated by a covetous and avaricious "love of money, 
the root of all evil." Both can say with Jonson: 

"Get money; still g-et money, my boy; 
No matter by what means;" 

and again with Horace as translated by Pope: 

"Get place and wealth; if possible with gTace; 
If not, by any means get wealth and place." 



NOSE TO THE GRINDSTONE. 61 

The miser is the poorest man on earth, though sur- 
rounded by plenty, and he bends all his energies, 
with the patience and suffering* of the martyr, in or- 
der to lay up treasure on earth, with his nose ever 
to the grindstone of privation and sacrifice for self. 
The prodigal toils for money often with the same de- 
votion and zeal, upon the same principle and for the 
same purpose and end, only in a different way. Nei- 
ther knows the value of money for its legitimate uses, 
and hence neither, except accidentally or incidentally, 
ever benefits the world. The prodigal scatters his 
money as fast as he gets it, the miser leaves it 
when he dies. Neither is ever useful or happy while 
he lives, and both live and die under the curse of 
selfishness — with their noses to the grindstone of life- 
wasting and soul-starving selfishness — lost and 
doomed and damned to the perpetual and eternal 
bondage of selfishness. 

It is perfectly legitimate for a man to make and 
save money, honestly, and for the legitimate purposes 
of his money. We can't get along in this world 
without the "almighty dollar;" and the "almighty 
dollar" consecrated to the useful ends of life is not 
only one of our best friends, but one of the most 
beneficial instrumentalities for good. Money for its 
purpose is one of God's gifts and blessings; and 
whosoever makes it and keeps it and spends it for this 
purpose never loves it for itself but only for its uses. 
Such a man, all other things being equal, never has 
his nose to the grindstone, except for God and for 
good; and when you find such a man you may sing 
aloud: 

"Praise God from whom all blessing-s flow." 



62 HARP OF LIFE. 

I have seen some who recognized that God was the 
Lord of their pocketbook, and who gave all they 
made, or had, to his service. I have known them to 
deny themselves the luxuries of life, sometimes do 
without a new suit of clothes, sometimes to pinch 
from the plenty of the table and the pantry in order 
to have more to give to God; and although the nose 
was to God's grindstone, so to speak, it was never 
ground off, but only ground the more shapely and 
beautiful and divinely classical. No man will ever 
be ashamed of his nose in heaven for having been 
ground on God's grindstone. 

The great difficulty here below is that the vast 
majority of men who love and make money have their 
nose to the Devil's grindstone; and instead of the 
wife turning the handle, just imagine the Devil with 
his hand on the crank. No wonder Jesus called 
money "the unrighteous mammon." It is the god of 
this world; and millions of people, many of them in 
the churches, are going down to hell under the awful 
curse of idolatry with their noses to the grindstone 
of slavish devotion to money. Multitudes of God's 
own people have their noses to the grindstone of 
poverty or misfortune or hard times, because they 
are perpetually robbing God in the churches. No 
wonder the caterpillar, and the grasshopper, and the 
cyclone and the drought, and the frost, and the pes- 
tilence, and all sorts of disasters scourge us every 
year. Many of us are thieves and robbers sitting 
upon the front pews or in the amen benches of God's 
house. We heed not the call of missions, the cry of 
Macedonia, "Come over and help us;" and lay more 
stress upon any other Scripture than the great com- 



NOSE TO THE GRINDSTONE. 63 

mission, "Go ye into all the world and preach the 
gospel to every creature." Very few have ever con- 
ceived the truth of Christ when he said, "Seek ye 
first (make paramount, make number one) the King- 
dom of God and his righteousness, and all these 
things shall be added unto you." The Christian 
who understands the above two passages of Scrip- 
ture and puts them in practice, will never have his 
nose put to the grindstone of poverty in this nor the 
world to come, all other things being equal. 




Spades are Trumps* 



"\\A7HEN I was a boy I learned to play cards; and 
v * the first and only game I ever knew anything* 
much about was "Seven Up," or "Old Sledge," as 
they called it. I never gambled in my life — that is 
to say, played for money — and I trust my example, 
at that time, never led others either to play or to 
gamble. It is nothing to my credit that I only 
played cards; and I want to say that it is the most 
dangerous and deadly game any one ever learned to 
play. Even to know how to play cards is a tempta- 
tion to gamble; and many a man would never have 
been a gambler if he hadn't known how to play. Of 
all the games in the world with which the Devil and 
Death have the most to do, it is the game with cards. 
The man who invented cards must have come from 
Hades. He certainly went there. Mothers, fathers, 
sisters, brothers, above all things, keep the pack of 
cards off* your parlor table. You never know whom 
you are going to ruin by your example. 

My early knowledge of this game suggested the 
picture before you — the lost sinner playing "Old 
Sledge," or "Seven Up," with Death — and I might 
have put it, with the Devil, who is the father of Sin 
and Death. Spades are trumps — the spade being the 
symbol of the game — and the last card in the grave 
being thrown by Death is the ace of spades, the high- 
est card in the pack and a trump besides. The poor 

(64) 




SPADES ARK TRUMPS. 



SPADES ARE TRUMPS. 67 

fellow sitting- before him has no card which can beat 
that trump. Live, however, as we may, shift as we 
will, deal as we can, play whatever hand for life 
we shall, yet death will hold the winning trump 
against the best of us at last. Christian or sinner, 
this will be the end of us all. The struggl^fcp play 
beyond our time will be useless; and the iffy thing 
left us is to be prepared for the loss of 'fnis life by 
not hazarding in the game the loss of the life to come. 
We play hard for existence even here against the 
grim monster; but if the stake of the immortal soul 
is not put up in the game, even the trump of Death 
at last — the ace of spades — is but thrown upon our 
coffin and buried with the green sod which blooms 
with the flowers of immortality. Even Death but 
plays a friendly game to the hopeful child of God. 

But there is another and a sadder side to this pic- 
ture; it is when Death is playing into the hands of 
the Devil against the sinner. From any moral or 
eternal point of view the Christian never plays the 
game of life against the grave. Our destiny is fixed 
if we trust in Christ against all the hazards of life 
or death; and existence is not a matter of chance or 
lottery with the Christian. The hairs of our head 
are numbered; our footsteps are directed even when 
our hearts devise our way; and to the bound of life 
we are accompanied by the angels who are helping 
spirits to the heirs of salvation. It is not simply all 
is well that may end well with us, but all is well be- 
cause we begin well and end as we begin; and there 
is no matter of chance or lottery w^ith him who, in 
Christ Jesus, is faithful unto death. Not so with 
the lost sinner who lives and dies in the waste of all 



68 HARP OF LIFE. 

God's opportunities for life, and who wins all the 
Devil's opportunities for death. In the midst of a 
thousand conflicting- doubts and fears he takes the 
chance for eternity; and he throws every card of for- 
tune upon the Devil's pile to be trumped at last with 
the ace of spades in the skeleton hand of Death. 
The Devil is a great g-ambler. Not the shrewdest 
human being- can successfully play the game of life 
with Satan; and none but God can break for us the 
spell and the charm of the fascinating- play into 
which he draws every unbelieving- soul. 

There are a great many cards which Satan tempts 
us to throw for our pleasure or profit here below, which 
are for his g-ain and our eternal loss. The old De- 
stroyer sometimes lets us win, yet he holds the final 
trump which will cover every card the sinner throws. 
He holds the ace of spades, the symbol of death here 
and of death eternal; for, after all, "the wages of 
sin is death" everlasting-, the awful sum the lost soul 
wins to lose eternal life. See that man who plays 
all for money, the "almighty dollar," the "unrig-ht- 
eous mammon." How he throws his cards to win 
this stake, for which millions, forg-etful of God and 
eternity perpetually play! Every device and trick 
of skill, every drop of sweat and stroke of toil, every 
moment of day and dream of nig-ht is flung- upon the 
table that counts his silver and g-old; and there the 
Devil plays into the hand of Avarice until, sooner or 
later, God stands by his side and says: "Thou fool, 
this night thy soul shall be required of thee. ' ' Death 
casts upon his coffin the winning- trump at last; covet- 
ousness lifts the only monument which marks his 
grave upon earth, while the Devil has won his soul 



SPADES ARE TRUMPS. 69 

for eternity. Alas! it is a terrible thing- for him that 
"layeth up treasure on earth for himself, and is not 
rich towards God." The Devil will catch thousands 
of church members in the game of covetousness, to 
say nothing- of the Goulds, the Stewarts, and the 
like outside, who never played for life any other than 
the card of money. 

Again, there is the game of Infidelity, in which 
the Devil stocks the cards upon the blinded fool who 
plays his very soul for the intoxication of a fatal de- 
lusion. In some things, as in money, lust, drunken- 
ness, lies, profanity and "such like," the old Deceiver 
plays a straight hand with those who knowingly and 
willfully hazard all for the gratification of passion 
and appetite in the grosser debaucheries which blunt 
the mind, harden the heart, and destroy the body. 
Ambition, pride and fancy, however, the pursuit of 
fame and honor and glory, the chase after the bub- 
bles of fashion, pleasure and the fictions of the im- 
agination — these involve the games of life which are 
always being won and lost in a varying play which 
follows the gambler's instinct never to stop, even 
upon a losing hand. With many the game never 
closes until life is exhausted or death comes, and the 
soul, deceived of the Devil by a thousand glittering 
cheats, goes down at the close under the last win- 
ning trump of damnation. Defeat, disappointment 
and disaster never prove a warning in such a game to 
most people, and in their hopeless contest with the 
world, the flesh and the devil, they play on for a sat- 
isfaction which is never satisfied, and which ends in 
the delusive loss of the soul by a game in which Satan 
plays with a stocked hand. 



70 HARP OF LIFE. 

Let us never forget that every life of sin is but a 
game of chance played with Death and the Devil, who 
holds the winning* trump in the end. You never 
beat the Devil, as you never escape death, no mat- 
ter how often you seem to win; and God never de- 
feats the game until you quit playing your soul 
into the hands of the great Deceiver. Occasionally 
God's special providences and judgments alarm you 
and turn you, for a time, from your hazardous play; 
but often, in spite of God's interposition, you return 
to the vicious and fatal crime of gambling your soul 
to perdition. You get up from the sick bed or come 
out of sorrow and misfortune, or wake up by revival 
admonitions and warnings to better resolutions and 
promises; but soon you are before the stage play, or 
waltzing in the dance hall, or ogling before the sa- 
loon counter, or swearing and lusting and coveting 
as before. You return to the card table of Death, 
and there with the Devil you resume the play for the 
gratification of the flesh and for the ruin of the soul. 
Sometimes, as in the case of the gambler, your case 
assumes the phase of desperation. The disappointed 
man plunges the dagger into his heart. The ruined 
woman leaps into the river. The conscience-stricken 
debauchee blows out his brains. The last trump of 
Death is prematurely courted in the dread game of 
destruction, and a laughing Devil hustles you off to 
hell. 

Gambling is the natural and universal sin of man- 
kind under some form or other. Our boys begin it 
with marbles on the streets. Our young people 
learn it in the parlor. It is developed in the billiard 
hall, on the race track, with the cock fight and buck- 



SPADES ARE TRUMPS. 71 

et shop, speculation in futures, the corner lot boom, 
and in what are called various legitimate ways, as 
well as in the gambling- hell. Much of our business 
is gambling, and what is normal to us in social life 
is natural to us in the spiritual world. We play 
with our souls as we do with our pocketbooks, and the 
Devil has millions of people at his card table all the 
time and everywhere. Nothing is so fascinating and 
delusive as gambling, and just as we see men pursue 
it to ruin with each other physically, so do they with 
the Devil morally. In the game of death they madly 
and wildly risk all upon the crapshooter's die or the 
card player's trump. Young man, don't gamble, for 
all gambling is of the Devil and with the Devil and 
for the Devil in the end. Beware of the ace of spades 
in the hands of Death, and remember always it is the 
Devil's last trump with which to win your soul if you 
die in sin. 

An evangelist once went into a saloon where some 
men were seated around a table gambling with cards. 
He threw a tract upon the table entitled "The Pre- 
cious Blood of Christ," and as he threw it he said: 
"Gentlemen, that is the best card that was ever 
thrown." It was the King of hearts, not the ace of 
spades. One of the men laid down his cards, picked 
up the tract and read it; and after a few minutes of 
solemn thought he left the saloon, never to return to 
the play. He was converted and began to preach the 
gospel to his fallen comrades and to such as inhabited 
the saloons and gambling hells; and in the course of 
his life, he has been the means of leading many to 
Christ. That is the card to throw, if I might use 



72 HARP OF LIFE. 

such an expression; and that is the only card which 
ever won a soul from death and gained life and im- 
mortality. God save the boys and save our country 
from the doom of the gambler's hell. 





MONKEYING. 



Monkeying* 



^TpHE monkey is said to be our ancestral prototype 
-^ or progenitor. I am not a Darwinian, but I 
must confess there is much of the monkey in our na- 
ture; and I think that the probability of descending 
to it is greater than that of ascending from this 
somewhat human little monstrosity. Man seems to 
be psychologically the sum of all animals — lion, tiger, 
hyena, bear, wolf, fox, dog, hog and so on — but we 
are practically akin to the monkey in that one trait of 
character called meddling, or tampering, or tinker- 
ing, with what does not belong to us, or with what 
we have no business. By way of caricature, or lu- 
dicrous characterization, this trait is called monkey- 
ing-, and this is the subject before us. 

Primarily we notice this characteristic trait among 
children, especially the boys. His curiosity, his ir- 
repressible tendency for seeing into and handling 
everything, even if he has to tear it all to pieces or 
destroy the object of his investigation, shows him to 
be the veritable monkey we have seen a thousand 
times. He sticks his finger in the fire, into boiling 
water or molten lead, when he knows it will burn; 
and if he discovers a dynamite shell, and could not 
get into it otherwise, he would try a hammer on its 
cap if it blew him into fragments. He would stick 
a match into a hay stack to see if it would burn or 
into a barrel of gunpowder to see if it would ex- 



(75) 



76 HARP OF LIFE. 

plode; and but for God's providence most of the boys 
in the world would be killed before they were grown. 
They will ruin your watch, displace your machinery, 
or tear up your wardrobe simply in order to satisfy 
curiosity, perpetrate mischief , or gratify an inordinate 
desire to meddle with what does not concern or belong- 
to them. The more dangerous a thing* is to tamper 
with, the more valuable a thing- is to dapnage, the 
more impossible a thing- is to do, all the better for a 
boy's tinkering- and venture. Edg-ed tools, kicking 
horses, biting dogs, hooking cows, snakes, spiders 
and centipedes, these are the things he must fool 
with. That which he cannot, or should not do, that 
which he cannot understand, the place where he 
should not go, this is the sphere of his most cher- 
ished operations; and when his curiosity or desires are 
satisfied it is herein he wants not to do, nor know, 
nor go, any more. Every man has the scars, never 
outgrown, of his boyhood's monkeying on his hands, 
if not all over his body. 

But men are but boys grown up and grown old in 
the monkeying business. They but too often tamper 
and tinker with what they should not; and I have 
tried to study the following analysis of monkeying 
on the part of older people: 

1. People monkey with what does not belong to 
them. This is especially true of money, the love of 
which is the root of all evil. The young clerk gets to 
be a thief by tinkering with the nickels, and then the 
dimes, and then the quarters, and then the half dol- 
lars, and then the dollars of his employer. He first 
handles and then takes and puts back without permis- 
sion, and then takes out without putting back; and 



MONKEYING. 77 

by degrees the tendency to tamper with the tempta- 
tion hardens into the loss of honest sensibility which 
forgets the difference between meuin et teum, mine 
and thine. So the cashier monkeys with the bank 
funds, so the man elected to public trust tampers 
with the people's money; and the semi-thieving pro- 
pensity which first takes and then puts back deepens 
into the bolder spirit of robbery and concealment 
until exposure ruins the man and his family. Thus 
originates the downfall of the administrator, the 
trustee and the guardian; and the many calamities 
which befall the business interests of every commu- 
nity may be traced to the original tendency of mon- 
keying with other people's money. 

2. People monkey with what does not concern 
them. It is as much as any man can afford to attend 
to his own business, but there are many who must 
have a mouth or a finger in the business of everybody 
else. Rancy Sniffle is everywhere to widen the dif- 
ferences between his quarreling neighbors and to 
get up a fight if possible; and the tale-bearer and 
the scandal-monger are ever on the alert to find 
something which will create sensation or keep the 
hell-broth of disturbance boiling by interfering in 
other people's affairs. " The busybody in other 
men's matters," the social meddler, the devil's mon- 
key, is a figure most exquisitely drawn by the apos- 
tle Paul; and every page of history goes to show that 
human nature in this regard has always and univer- 
sally been the same. We all have the sad experience 
and observation of this monkeying trait in human 
nature, having either suffered by interfering our- 
selves with things which did not concern us, or else 



78 HARP OF LIFE:. 

having so been interfered with. I judge that no- 
body has ever escaped at this point. 

3. People monkey with that which is most pre- 
cious. There are those who handle your reputation, 
or good name, your character, as lightly as if these 
precious gifts were a handful of feathers, to be scat- 
tered to the four winds and blown about upon every 
breeze. Like idle or vicious children, they make a 
plaything or a mock of that which is more valuable 
to us than fine gold; and having, perhaps, no charac- 
ter of their own to lose, they have no appreciation 
of that which is dearer than life to others. As the 
dog they have no conception of that which is holy, 
as the hog they trample your diamonds under foot, 
and then turn and rend you. 

Under this head you will find thousands of people 
monkeying with theology and religion. They lightly 
blaspheme the name of Jesus; and they talk about 
the great doctrines of the Bible, its great characters, 
its splendid historical events as they would the pic- 
tures and stories of Mother Goose. The pious and 
godly Christian, the noble minister of Christ, the 
holy mother who prayed for them and shed a bushel 
of tears over them, have no sacredness in their eyes 
from any religious standpoint. The young * 'smart 
Alek," the dabbler in science and philosophy, yea 
the vicious ignoramus who knows nothing so much 
as impiety, walks about the streets and spurts infi- 
delity, or otherwise handles deceitfully and pro- 
fanely the Word and name of God. Without rever- 
ence for sacred person, thing, or place, they tinker 
with holy truths and doctrines as children play with 
toys, and nothing in the dignity of consecrated schol- 



MONKEYING. 79 

arship, piety or practice, nothing* from the stand- 
point of Christian character, example, or result, 
affords any argument to the blinded prejudice and 
the daring- presumption with which ignorance and 
iniquity ridicule or oppose theology and religion. 

4. Again there are those who monkey with the 
purity and virtue of their fellows, both in the private 
and public relations of life. They tamper especially 
with the morals of our youth who set up or promote 
institutions of vice, such as the saloon, the brothel 
and the gambling hell; and they do it recklessly and 
without the slightest regard to society, church or 
state. There are young men, and older men, too, who 
play with female chastity as the cat plays with its 
victim which it intends to devour, or as with dice 
upon a checker board in the game of seduction and 
infamy. They study the art and pursue it with re- 
lentlessness, cunning and energy to the destruction of 
a once innocent life and spotless character; and then 
with the trivial lightness of soap-bubbles they blow 
about the blighted reputation of those they have 
ruined. No punishment on earth is too severe, no 
place in hell is too hot for such men. It is marvel- 
ous with what reckless flippancy and indifference 
these fiends of debauchery can tamper with and 
mock at virtue, the most priceless jewel man or 
woman ever wore. Ignorance or mental imbecility 
is a fertile source of the monkeying spirit in many 
precious things; but moral insensibility alone can give 
birth to that tinkering tendency which can touch and 
taint and poison and then make havock of modesty, 
purity, chastity, and virtue in man or woman with- 
out the slightest compunction of conscience, without 



80 HARP OF LIFE 

the slightest regard to consequences and without the 
slightest fear of God, man or hell. The brute alone 
can break into your garden and destroy your flow- 
ers. The wolf alone can seize and devour your 
lamb. The Devil alone can ruin your life and char- 
acter and then laugh and dance over the wreck of his 
villainy. 

5. Finally, people can monkey, not only with that 
which is precious, but that which is dangerous to 
tamper or experiment with. We discover this fact 
especially illustrated in the politics of our country. 
What a country, and what a government, and what 
an age is ours! Think of the religious and political 
freedom vouchsafed to us! Think of the sovereign 
privilege of the ballot box. trial by jury, the right 
of popular representation in the administration of 
public affairs, equality at the bar of justice and the 
like blessing of worshiping God according to the 
dictates of conscience ! America epitomizes the prog- 
ress and glory of all the centuries. Yet the politi- 
cian recklessly and madly tampers with every sub- 
lime principle upon which our free institutions and 
our heritage are founded. They play with the bal- 
lot box as boys play with a football; and they make 
merchandise out of the public trusts of the govern- 
ment. The lyncher's rope usurps the prerogatives 
of the courthouse, because in themalad ministration 
of justice, the corrupted judge, the shyster lawyer 
and the professional juror toy with the life and the 
rights of the people. So the lobbyist and the boodler 
and the pie hunter control the halls of legislation: 
and the politician to-day does not hesitate to tinker 
with a foreign religion and a foreign policy which 



MONKEYING: 81 

are totally alien to every idea of American institu- 
tions. They have monkeyed the Bible out of our pub- 
lic schools to suit alike the pleasure of the anti-re- 
ligious anarchist and the over religious absolutist; 
and the next great step of innovation will be to grant 
privileges which will tend to the organic union of 
church and state, or else to alienate church and 
state from even a moral unity, according to which 
idea shall dominate in the politics of our country. 
The politician has monkeyed the saloon into power 
as a political factor; and no doubt the politician 
would monkey withothe Devil in government if it 
would inure to profit, place or position. 

Men monkey with almost everything precious or 
dangerous. The quack doctor monkeys with his sick 
and dying patient, the jackleg lawyer monkeys with 
his client, and the humbug preacher monkeys with 
the immortal soul when he preaches false doctrine 
or pursues a misleading life. What a dreadful thing 
above all else to tamper or experiment with the souls 
of men! Every Christian even is doing that, when 
he fails to teach or exemplify the whole counsel of 
God, or when he walks disorderly before the wicked. 
In fact, we are monkeying with the business of God's 
Kingdom when we but half do or ineffectually do our 
duty in keeping His house and in spreading the gos- 
pel to a perishing world. Much of so-called Chris- 
tian life and activity is nothing more than inefficient, 
if not intentional, monkeying with God's business; 
and alas! for the record of those who go to eternity 
with the reputation and reward of a religious tinker! 
Fifty cents a year for missions and ten dollars a year 
for tobacco is simply monkevmg with God. It k 



82 HARP OF LIFE. 

worse than child's play with edged tools or tarantu- 
las. It is trifling- with the Christian profession, 
and it were better for a man to have a millstone tied 
about his neck and be cast into the sea. 




No God- 



ly PRESENT with this sketch the symbolic picture 
^ of Atheism. A world shrouded in the gloom of 
chaos affords the only proper footing of the "FOOL" 
of fools, who says there is no God. His only com- 
panion in the solitude of his own self-wrought isola- 
lation and darkness is the amused Devil at his elbow 
who laughs at his egregious stupidity. "The fool 
hath said in his heart: "NO GOD!" If indeed there 
is a being on earth upon whom the Devil can look 
with mingled contempt and amazement it must be 
the prince of fools whom he has persuaded to believe 
there is no God in this universe. 

It took the Devil a long while to make an atheist. 
Such a development was not an early possibility. It 
was a latter day evolution of diabolic subtilty. Eve 
could be persuaded that God was a deceiver and a 
liar by the Devil, but he did not attempt to prove to 
her that there was no God. From the womb of un- 
belief every other sin was first brought forth in due 
course of time, but it took the education of ages to 
bring forth the crowning sin of Atheism. In the 
course of centuries the philosopher discovered that 
the world resulted from the fortuitous concourse of 
atoms or by chance; and along the further reach of 
the ages the Materialist developed the universe from 
the womb of the same all-wise, all-powerful and 
everywhere atom as the evolution of force! Behind 

(85) 



86 HARP OF LIFE. 

the atom he saw no God; and of course there could 
be no immortal soul in man since what is called soul, 
or mind, or spirit was but the result of physical or- 
ganism and must die when the body dies. Life is 
simply the result of molecular action inherent in 
carbonic acid, water and ammonia! Mind is the ef- 
fect of chemical change in the nervous elements of 
the brain! A man is only a higher order of animal, 
and he is no more than a dog when he dies! This is 
atheistic Materialism. 

To be sure, for a different class of educated Athe- 
ists the Devil has left several more accommodating 
theories of God and the universe. Pantheism makes 
all things God; and the Hylozoist makes God the 
soul of the world. Man, like everything else we 
see, is but an external phenomenon of God; and he 
is so honored when he dies as to be absorbed back 
into the invisible substance of God from whence he 
emanated as a visible manifestation. There might 
be some sort of consolation in this sort of a God if a 
dead man could be conscious of his absorption, but 
such is not the case. He is forever lost as to his 
identity; and hence Pantheism or Hylozoism is noth- 
ing but a more palatable form of Atheism after all. 
I had just as soon have the atom God of the Mate- 
rialist as the substance God of the Pantheist. One 
is the philosophy of dirt and the other is the theolo- 
gy of dirt; and the moral effect of both is the same. 
Good and evil are alike the result of fatality; and 
evil is just as essential to our being and condition as 
good. In neither can there be any conscious exist- 
ence hereafter, and hence there can be no future ac- 
countability based upon present responsibility. 



NO GOD. 87 

Old Nick has still another more palatable form of 
Atheism. He originated for tenderer consciences the 
know-nothing* fad of our day called Agnosticism. 
There may or may not be a God, there may or may 
not be a hereafter, the soul may or may not be im- 
mortal — we don't know! Hence God is said to be 
unknowable, unthinkable, unbelievable! The effect 
of such philosophy is the same as Materialism or 
Pantheism. It is Atheism. If a man does not know 
whether to believe in a God or not, it is just the 
same as if there were no God to him at all; and his 
life will be but an atheistic conformation to his know- 
nothing- creed. The know-nothing- will believe noth- 
ing- and do nothing-; and the Agnostic is just as big a 
fool, in effect, as the Pantheist or the Atheist. He 
effectually says there is no God. 

Last in the scale of Atheism is the doctrine of im- 
personal deity which, like Agnosticism, makes God 
intangible, unthinkable and without any spiritual or 
moral relationship to man. So far as any effect upon 
the present life, or so far as any conceivable exist- 
ence in the life to come is concerned, we had just as 
well believe in no God at all. To man God is per- 
sonal or nothing-. Man himself is a person. All 
his acts and attributes are personal; and as a rational 
and moral being- man must be in the likeness and im- 
ag-e of his Creator. All creation must bear the 
stamp of its original in the light of causation and de- 
sign; and as in revelation, so in nature, our God is 
personally nmnifested in all the phenomena which 
declares Him. Especially in Christ, the crowning 
work of His personal exhibition, was God made mani- 
fest; and he who believes in an impersonal God, or 



88 HARP OF LIFE. 

God apart from Christ, is practically an atheist. 
He that has no God manifest, has no personal God. 
Even the Polytheist who yields to the universal- in- 
tuition of a personal God in some tangible form, to 
be God at all, is wiser than he. The impersonal 
Deist, in fact the personal Deist, who cannot see God 
in Christ as in creation, simply says in effect, "There 
is no God." 

But leaving- the Devil's educational theories aside, 
there is a large amount of practical Atheism in the 
world exemplified, if not orally inculcated, by those 
who profess to believe in God and yet who practice 
contrary to their profession. The blindness and 
deadness of sin are such that in spite of our inten- 
tions and judgments, we often demonstrate that we 
do not practically believe in the existence and pres- 
ence of God. In other words, in spite of our intel- 
lectual belief, we show often that we have no con- 
scious realization that God is, or that He has any 
relation to us, or that He is the re warder of righteous- 
ness and the punisher of wickedness. It is the 
practical Atheism of the fool who says in his head 
there is a God and in his heart there is no God. 
For instance, the man who steals will hide from his 
fellows, but without scruple he will commit his deed 
in the sight of the God he professes to believe in. 
Even if he should have compunction of conscience, 
he will still go on in his crime until conscience is 
dead; and hence the belief of a God that produces 
no effect upon the heart and life of an individual is 
practical Atheism. So men blaspheme, murder, com- 
mit adultery, break the Sabbath, defraud, cheat, 
swindle, drink and revel out their lives in debauchery 



NO GOD. 89 

and idleness, in spite of their theory that there is a 
God; and so far as any effect of their belief is con- 
cerned they had as well have never heard of a God, 
and better too. They say in their hearts and lives 
and characters, "NO GOD!" 

It must be said also that this same gross and aw- 
ful form of unbelief characterizes much of our 
Christianity. Do we believe in God as we profess? 
Are not many of us often practically, if not experi- 
mentally atheists? We are doctrinally all right; 
but when it comes to experience and practice, what 
is the effect in general of our belief that God is, and 
that He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek 
Him? Many a Christian does wrong, I know, and 
as often as he errs he repents and returns to God 
who abundantly pardons; but what about that vast 
number of professors in the churches who are at ease 
in Zion, or who are doing wickedly and that contin- 
ually? Tell me, ye who can, how is it that a man 
born of God refuses to help send the gospel to the 
heathen in the face of Christ's great commission? 
Tell us again, if you will, how it is that a Christian 
can refuse to give his substance to God as God pros- 
pers him? Tell me if you dare, how can he who 
believes in God and His Christ, habitually absent 
himself from God's house and God's people? How 
can a Christian be covetous, idle and absolutely 
heartless in the service of Him who died to redeem 
him? and how can he love the theatre and the ball 
room and the race track and the saloon and bad com- 
pany and bad business better than he loves the 
prayer meeting and the Sunday school and the church 
service, as seen in thousands? 

7 



90 HARP OF LIFE. 

In conclusion, let me say that Atheism, pure and 
genuine, is a rare production, and dwells only in the 
heart of the fool of fools. "Thank heaven," said 
Horace Mann, "the female heart is untenantable by 
Atheism;" and let me say that the man who believes 
it is either miseducated and reformable, or else so 
grossly corrupt as to be beyond redemption. As a 
theory or a system, by whosoever held, Atheism is, 
in the language of Robert Hall, "inhuman, bloody, 
ferocious, equally hostile to every useful restraint 
and to every virtuous affection; tnat leaving- nothing- 
above us to excite awe, nor around us to awaken ten- 
derness, it wages war with heaven and earth; its 
first object is to dethrone God, its next to destroy 
man." The only signal or great event that Atheism 
ever produced was the Reign of Terror in the French 
Revolution when a nude woman was enthroned as 
God; and from this single chip from the character- 
istic block of the most blasphemous and deadly doc- 
trine ever inculcated, we may draw a picture of a 
world in chaos and destroying- itself, if such a theory 
could prevail among men. The negation of God is 
the destruction of all things mortal ; and if God and 
immortality be not true, evolution has wrought upon 
the intelligence and morality of the human race the 
shrewdest and most fatal swindle that the imagina- 
tion can conceive. How is it that man always and 
everywhere has universally believed in God? 

All this is a form of practical Atheism in the 
churches which makes the world say that we do not 
believe in the God we preach. How often have I heard 
people say: "If I believed what you all teach, I would 
never sleep while there was a sinner unconverted'" 



NO GOD. 91 

and as often have I heard others exclaim of onr re- 
ligion: "If this be Christianity, I want none of it." 
Bacon has well said that "Atheism is rather in the 
life than in the heart of man;" and it is exceedingly 
unfortunate that the world should discover in the 
life of the professed Christian that he believes not in 
the God he confesses. Truly did Bacon say again: 
"The great Atheists are, indeed, the hypocrites 
which are ever handling holy things, but without 
feeling;" and this is the most dangerous form of 
Atheism. The poor educated fool who seeks to prove 
that there is no God, and who professes there is no 
religion, can accomplish but little evil upon others in 
general; but, alas! alas! the fearful and awful ruin 
which the atheistic life of the professor of religion 
inflicts upon the world! One church member in a 
community can do more harm than a dozen Inger- 
solls, "and don't you forget it!" When Deacon 
Thomas Hinton bets on the horse race, or Col. Elliot 
Anderson, the Superintendent of the Sunday school, 
deals in futures, or Edgar Allen Poe Winston, the 
prominent and popular young member of a fashiona- 
ble city church, embezzles the funds of the bank of 
which he is cashier, it creates more unbelief in a 
community than all the works of Renan, Strauss 
and Spencer put together. 



©" 



Pie. 

|NE of the popular fads of the day is the figura- 
tive use of the word "pie" as applied to those 
who are ever on the hunt for oifice at the hands of 
those who have the distribution of such official hon- 
ors. Everybody, of course, knows that pie means 
something* good to eat — a standing New England 
dessert — whether peach, apple, pumpkin or chicken 
pie; and who is it that doesn't hanker after the lux- 
ury? What a delicacy when it comes in the form of 
official pie to the faithful henchman who has legged 
for his master! and what a noble position is that of 
a paid political understrapper! log-roller! and, if 
need be, shoulder-hitter, or ballot box stuff er! 

It seems to be now understood that almost every 
man elected to office must have his pirouette (or pi- 
rooter), or pie hunter to help him. Whenever you see 
an ardent advocate, as a rule, candidating for an- 
other candidate, you may be sure that he is working 
for political pie! Presidents, Governors, Senators, 
Congressmen, all who win influential positions, are 
the self-made victims of the pie hunter. They have 
to pay the price and penalty of pie; and, in the na- 
ture of things, it must be so, since politics have de- 
generated into a regular profession on the one hand 
and into a pie hunting business on the other, and if 
the pie hunter does not find a victim in one man, he 
has no scruples in finding another In fact, there is 

(92) 




• Vojtorf* ^^J^PT^^ 



pie. 



pie. 95 

what is called the "Pie Brigade, as well organized, 
drilled and desperate in its charges for place as the 
immortal "Six Hundred." If drawn up in line, 
about the time of the Presidential inauguration and in 
front of the Capitol at Washington, it would stretch 
out to Baltimore or Richmond and the incoming 
Executive couldn't see from one end to the other of 
it. The battle-scarred veterans of a thousand polit- 
ical battlefields would be there, and oh! the horrors 
of a regular siege of hungry, voracious pie hunters! 
It is worse than war, pestilence or famine when the 
"Pie Brigade" opens the campaign upon the new 
government. Think, too, of the internal strife of a 
multitude of pie workers in conflict with each other 
for the same pie claimed for a thousand different pie 
hunters. To know how to get and give this same 
pie to the right one, of a howling pack, must tax the 
brain and brawn, of the mightiest man, to nervous 
exhaustion. 

It was said of a certain President under these ex- 
cruciating circumstances, upon a certain occasion, 
that he arose from his chair shaking like an aspen, 
and exclaimed: "Every nerve in my body quivers as 
with the vibrations of the tenor catgut upon a highly 
strung banjo!" or words to that effect. The pie 
business has often played havoc with the health, 
wealth and political prospects of the greatest men 
of our country; and what would become of some 
men in position but for the sterner stuff out of which 
some of them are made? It would lead to sepulchral 
conjecture. 

Now there are all kinds and sizes of pie hunters, 
from a host of big bugs down to a swarm of mos- 



% HARP OF LIFE. 

quitoes that suck the lifeblood from our national, 
state and municipal treasuries. Sometimes these 
pie hunters are only boodlers for business or position 
on the outside, yet they make the pie giver sweat, 
while the government exchequer grows lean. Gen- 
erally the pie hunter is an unscrupulous trick- 
ster who not only practices a lucrative jobbery on 
the Government, or who works his man for all he is 
worth, but he is the vilest corrupter of politics and 
legislation in the land. Nor are they always indi- 
vidual jobbers or office seekers for pelf. Sometimes 
they are monopolies and corporations, organized 
traders dealing in the liberties and welfare of our 
country at the price of treason and corruption. 
They swap boodle as well as influence for pie; and 
under the protecting aggis of the Government they 
run the stupendous machinery of oppression to the 
masses and of perpetual fraud in politics and legis- 
lation. Oh pie! pie! pie! How many crimes are 
committed for thy sake, and under the voracious 
grasp of thine appetizing inspiration! There is no 
menace so great to the freedom and glory of Ameri- 
can institutions as the reign of the pie hunter and 
the demagogue. He often poses as a great and ar- 
dent patriot; but partisanism and pie are all that his 
patriotism ever signifies. 

Characteristically the pie hunter is a peculiar ani- 
mal. He is a small politician within a big one, and 
sometimes a big one behind a little one. Socially he 
is extravagantly clever to everybody. Politically he 
is Democrat, Republican, Populist, Prohibitionist, or 
what not, according to where the pie is going to ma- 
terialize; and when he is either, he is altogether 



pie. 97 

what he wouldn't be if it were not for the pie. No 
matter to what church he belongs, he belongs to all 
or none as well as any. He is like the chameleon, 
which always takes the color of his surroundings; 
and he is all things to all men that he may get pie. 
He is never in controversy with anything upon earth 
except for pie. He favors any and all evils among 
men which are popular; and he would leg and vote 
for the Devil in politics if it would give him pie. If 
there was pie in it he would favor the license of the 
saloon, the gambling hell and the brothel; and if 
there was a probability of abolishing these he would 
as zealously seek for prohibition pie — a pie, however, 
which has never yet had time to bake, but is in the 
oven and on the fire, all the same. 

The pie hunter is as the dog to his master, the 
most obsequious sycophant, or the most insidious 
traitor which society ever conceived or bred. To his 
master he stands or falls, but always falls from un- 
der. He would be a boot-black or lick-spittle when 
pie is in sight; but he would cut your throat if he 
saw the pie in the hands of another. The under- 
strapper is always the meanest of demagogues. He 
only hopes for reward for dirty work done for an- 
other; and in the nature of things the man who does 
such work for another who cannot afford to do it 
himself must be the basest and lowest of mankind. 
He is the scoundrel in whose hands you put the cam- 
paign fund with which to bribe the voter; and he is 
never too good to eat the boodle pudding before he gets 
the office pie. He it is who stuffs the ballot box for 
his own party or counts out the other party as seem- 
eth most convenient. Like all other subordinates in 



98 HARP OF LIFE. 

servile villainy, lie will out-Herod Herod for his mas- 
ter and his party, so long- as the pie is in view. The 
slave paid for his perfidy will always do even worse 
for his master than for himself. It is the base in- 
stinct of understrapping pride and ambition. The 
principal, to be sure, is responsible for the culpabil- 
ity of his agent in having* done what he himself 
would not stoop to do; but such agency rewarded in 
politics is what creates the pie hunter and makes 
him the most despicable wretch that ever cheated the 
gallows or the penitentiary out of a characteristic 
and Devil-deserving villain. 

The effect of the business is the degradation of 
politics and the maladministration of law and gov- 
ernment. The worst form of our administrative de- 
bauchery in government consists in peculation and 
fraud; and it is largely the result of rewarding bad 
men for political service . Not only are such men likely 
to practice thievery and corruption in office, but they 
are the hardest to displace when in office, no matter 
what their character or villainy. They are backed 
up by the obligations of their masters to their party, 
since they are the means by which men and parties 
get into power and keep in power; and, thank God, 
in the end their corruptions and scandals result in 
the downfall of all parties having too long a lease of 
supremacy in bad government. What party or gov- 
ernment can defend itself against the Pie Brigade 
intrenched behind the obligations of party or party 
leaders, however bad in office? What master can 
dare to attack the servant he has hired to do his 
dirty work? How often in the history of our Gov- 
ernment have we seen high officials and political par- 



pie. 99 

ties handicapped and disgraced in the attempt to 
punish bad men put into position under pie obliga- 
tions? Who does not remember the famous and la- 
conic order: "Let no guilty man escape" and who 
does not remember, however, that no guilty man un- 
der that order was ever brought to justice? 

There is no harm in rewarding disinterested ser- 
vice and honorable character in politics; but the 
shame and the scandal of the pie hunting business is 
enough to make the American people blush and trem- 
ble. "To the victor belongs the spoils" is a plausi- 
ble and popular maxim ; but it has degenerated from 
all honorable significance, if it ever had any, into a 
low, pie hunting motto which has turned politics 
and legislation into iniquity and fraud. The result 
of such condition has been to force civil service re- 
form enacted against partisan hate and opposition 
and almost impossible of execution. "Public office 
a public trust," the magnificent maxim of Cleveland, 
is heralded but winked at by an army of political 
leeches who hold in contempt the slightest principle 
of honor in the prostitution of every Governmental po- 
sition acquired under the pie hunting and purchasing 
scheme; and under the spoils system free institutions 
are not far away from the barter and sale of treason 
and usurpation at the hands of despotic ambition. 

The Constitution of the United States is next to 
an inspired document. The Government of these 
United States is the sacred heritage of God and 
Christianity, of political and religious liberty. In 
its delicate construction, in its tender balance and 
checkmate of powers, in its conservation of so many 
vast and conflicting interests, no government was 



100 HARP OF LIFE. 

ever so dependent upon the wisdom, virtue and hon- 
est livelihood of the masses and upon the political 
integrity of its official servants. One of our greatest 
dangers lies in the scramble for office, in the doctrine 
of spoils and in the merchandise of Governmental 
positions, all of which has resulted in the decay of 
patriotism and in the degeneration of statesmanship. 
The pie business is one of the most monstrous curses 
of our country. Too many ring's, monopolies, bood- 
lers and place hunters are tampering- with our poli- 
tics and legislation and handling our money; and our 
political parties are in the grasp of these organized 
and unorganized cormorants of greed and corruption. 
I speak as a citizen, a patriot, a Christian. "Right- 
eousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to 
any people." 

Finally, let me say that pie is of the Devil. The 
pie business began in the Garden of Eden when the 
Devil gave taffy to Eve and tempted her to eat of 
the forbidden fruit which she gave to Adam, and 
Adam to the human race, as the paltry price of her 
treason to God. This was pie — apple pie — a good 
thing in its place, but in its figurative application to 
bad politics and bad religion, is full of woe. God 
and Christ never gave taffy to mortal or angel; and 
they never offered pie as the base reward of place 
and honor. God saves by grace and crowns with 
glory the honest sweat and the sacrificial tear which 
win his rewards. To gain the crown we must bear 
the cross; to sit upon the throne we must tread the 
narrow way. Mr. Ingalls holds that the golden 
rule has no application to politics, and hence no place 
in government, but in such a government as ours, 



PIE. 101 

under such a constitution, surely moral honesty is 
the only palladium of our free institutions. Church 
and state, religion and politics in this country have 
no organic relation. They are constitutionally sepa- 
rate and apart; but morally there is or ought to be 
a mutual interdependence by which they, inorganic- 
ally, support and protect each other. God forbid 
that God and religion, in the sense of moral relation- 
ship, should be cast out of American politics and 
legislated out of office. 

The Devil, so to speak, offered big pie to Christ 
on the mountain top — he offered him a world that 
did not, however, belong to him — but the pie was 
refused. Let Christian men and women especially 
take notice and keep out of the pie business in this 
world. 




The Old Field School 



^TpHE "Old Field School" was a pioneer institu- 
-"* tion. The teacher then was like the preacher — 
he didn't know much, but what sense he had was 
good sense; and with all his limited qualifications, 
he did a vast amount of good, according to opportu- 
nity and the material he had to work with. Country 
places were then rude and uncultivated, the people 
were poor, or if well-to-do, didn't care much for ed- 
ucation; and it was a long time in the early settle- 
ments of this country before the academy got a 
higher foothold. In those days the country people 
relied largely upon their judgment, memory and 
mother wit; and their surroundings and conditions did 
not demand the education and culture of the present 
day. The "Old Field School" teacher was in keep- 
ing and touch with his time and place; and he was 
held in considerable esteem and veneration, especially 
by the boys and girls who came under the sway of 
his rod and scepter. I well remember being often 
and very much struck by him as well as with him. 

It is remarkable, too, that from the Old Field 
School sprang up in the world many mighty spirits. 
Its limited education often gave inspiration to native 
talent and struggling genius; and hundreds of our 
greatest men never had anything but an Old Field 
School education. The halls of Congress, the pulpit, 
the highest positions of trust and honor have been 

(102) 



the: old field school. 105 

ably filled by such men as the "Mill Boy of the 
Slashes," "Old Hickory," Andrew Johnson, Patrick 
Henry and others who never went to an academy, or 
never saw inside of a college. Thousands of busi- 
ness men, lawyers, doctors, preachers, jurists, poli- 
ticians and statesmen never had any other literary 
start in the world than the Old Field School cur- 
riculum? 

We are disposed to laugh, sometimes, at the crude 
institutions and the rude characters which were at 
the beginning- and the bottom of our civilization; but 
after all it was from them that we inherited all the 
national brawn and brain and virtue we have. Alas I 
it is too true to-day that "broad culture" and "big 
money" unsanctified tend to run our civilization to 
seed, or "into the sand." The world has never been 
corrupter or weaker than at the climax of its grand- 
est civilizations; and if our civilization proves an ex- 
ception to the rule it will be due only to the mainte- 
nance of a pure and primitive Christianity. Broad 
culture and big money, however, corrupt even our 
simple religion; and if from the acme of national 
glory every other civilization began to decay, who 
can say that even Christianity loosened by refinement 
and fattened by luxury shall be able to subsist in 
purity and power, or save us from the stall-fed and 
the purple-robed dropsy which has bloated and stag- 
nated every other civilization in the history of the 
world? 

Every nation has been wiser and more virtuous, if 
not so progressive, in the primitive stages of its de- 
velopment. Integrity and religion shone brighter in 
the earlier struggles of social and national life. 



106 HARP OP LIFE. 

Broad culture generally becomes too liberal, big- 
money always too licentious. The old field school, 
the old-time church, the old-fashioned social circle, 
would not fit the gorgeous day in which we now live; 
but it would be a good thing if our goodness and 
greatness had more of the spirit and virtue of prim- 
itive times and intitutions. 

But I am off the track. Let me now enter into 
some of the details and workings of the Old Field 
School. 

1. Its Faculty. It consisted in one man who was 
president, chancellor, dean, secretary, treasurer, and 
professor — fully equal to the situation. He may be 
described as about six feet and two inches high, 
broad-shouldered, heavy-handed and of about two 
hundred pounds avoirdupois. His head was bald and 
ran high into the bump of firmness and self-esteem, 
cheek bones prominent, face long and "wapper- 
jawed," eyes grey and set deep with overhanging 
brows. This was the facult}^ without any assistants. 
Squire Simpson did not need any help. He had no 
classes, except the spelling class, and there were no 
grades in the school. Every scholar was his own 
class and his own grade and recited his own lesson, 
from the A B C to the class in arithmetic. 

2. The Building and its Equipments. It was a 
log house with but one door and no windows, except 
one long crack cut between two logs. Below this 
crack was fastened a long desk where all wrote when 
writing time came. The seats were made of slabs 
fixed on pegs, without any backs whatever, and you 
had to sit up straight on them. The only other piece 
of furniture in the house was the teacher's chair 



THE OLD FIELD SCHOOL. 107 

with a split or rawhide bottom. The fireplace was 
nearly as broad as the end of the house, and the 
boys took it time about in making- fires and bringing 
water, the girls sweeping- the floor. Such a thing 
as a janitor was unheard of. 

3. The curriculum of the school was Reading-, 
'Riting-, 'Rithmetic — the three R's and nothing- more. 
Grammar and geography came in at a later day and 
were the stepping-stone to hig-her education in the 
early country districts. The people saw no use for 
grammar or geography, and Webster's Spelling 
Book, McGufFy's Reader, Smiley's Arithmetic and a 
quire of foolscap paper constituted all the equipments 
needed in the course of study for the most advanced 
scholarship. 

4. The government of the school was an absolute 
despotism subject to modification, only by the tender 
mercies of the despot. The will of Squire Simpson 
was sole law, and the six-foot hickory switches by 
his side were the penalty for every infraction. No- 
body in the neighborhood objected, though he some- 
times cut to the blood, and when a boy got a licking 
at school and went home complaining he got another 
—that is to say, that was the case with me. If any- 
body violated the law he got a thrashing; and a 
thrashing in those days did the boys good and after- 
wards made men of them. 

5. The mode of study was singular. Each one 
got and recited his own lesson without reference to 
class or gradation, and without much instruction, if 
any, by the teacher, who only heard the lesson, but 
seldom taught it. You had to follovp the book and 
work it out by the synthetic rule, "DO IT," and as 



108 HARP OF LIFE. 

singular as it may appear, that old rule made many 
a man and scholar without the aid of so man} 7 ana- 
lytical helps as we have in this day. The teacher 
himself understood how to "do it," but he made you 
follow his rule without chewing* your intellectual 
food for you to swallow. Chewing- is a great help 
to digestion, and if you were a chewing- scholar you 
could go out and study under a tree where you had 
to work out your "sum" if it took all summer. 
When you got through arithmetic you could work 
anything in it whether you understood it all or not, 
and often the Old Field School arithmetician, who 
seldom ever forgot his learning, could put a college 
graduate to shame in "figures." When the hour for 
writing came we all wrote, and when the hour for 
spelling came we all spelled — spelled aloud for half 
an hour all over the place until we recited. Once a 
month the boys declaimed speeches memorized from 
the "Columbian Orator," and the girls wrote com- 
positions on "birds," "flowers," "spring," and other 
familiar themes. Of course they wrote and spoke 
without reference to any grammatical construction or 
rhetorical emphasis. "My name is Norval on the 
Grampian Hills. " "I am for war gods, ' ' was j ust as 
good as to say: "My name is Norval; on the Gram- 
pian Hills," etc. "I am for war! gods!" etc. 

6. The session consisted of the entire year, except 
perhaps a month or a couple of weeks at the close, 
with no vacation between times; and every day the 
school opened and closed about an hour by sun, with 
about an hour for dinner and play and with no recess 
before or after noon. When it came time to take in 
school, the teacher blew a horn or cried: "Books!" 



THE OLD FIELD SCHOOL. 109 

Such a thing* as a school bell would have been an in- 
novation; but when ' 'Books!" was called out every- 
thing* was dropped and we went to the schoolhouse, 
perhaps in disorder but always in a hurry. 

7. Peculiarities. There was one thing no stranger 
or passer-by could do without a ducking- and that 
was to halloo "school butter!" Often "at play 
time" I have seen the fellow on horseback that had 
the temerity to pass this banter, but he had to gallop 
as for life. If he was on foot the boys would run him 
a mile or catch him, and even swhen the school was 
"in" it was considered legitimate for the boys to run 
out and run down the foolhardy wretch that dared 
to give the "school butter" insult. I never knew 
what it meant unless it implied bad or rancid butter, 
such as was found in a schoolboy's bucket, and 
hence was applied to the schoolboy as a sorry epi- 
thet; but whether the subject is susceptible of the 
definition of Mr. Longstreet in Georgia Scenes, or 
not, it became, when applied, the challenge for a 
race and a ducking too if the offender was caught, 
even though they had to take him a mile to a creek. 

The boys sometimes played all sorts of tricks upon 
the teacher, as well as upon each other, such for 
instance as the pin trick; but if ever the Squire sat 
down on a pin when school took in, he got up not 
only in a hurry, but with a seasoned hickory in hand, 
and in all likelihood every boy in the house caught 
fire, unless some one should tell who the scape-grace 
was that placed the pin in the bottom of his chair. 
If two boys had a fight both got whipped, no matter 
who was right or wrong, and this rule generally 
kept the tale bearer silent, no matter how badly he 



110 HARP OF LIFE. 

had been handled or treated. The boys and girls 
were often allowed to play tog-ether at recess or play 
time, but in those primitive days you never heard of 
a scandal in a school. There were never any relig- 
ious exercises in the Old Field School, such as read- 
ing- the Bible and prayer; but morality and principle 
and manhood were held high and severely maintained 
under the heavy hand of Squire Simpson, who was 
an old-time Baptist, Methodist, or Presbyterian, and 
who was the soul of simple honor and honesty. 

On the last day of the school it was the custom of 
the big scholars to "turn the teacher out." It was 
understood that he would resist— try to knock the 
door down when they barred him out — but when re- 
sistance proved vain, he surrendered and the scholars 
demanded a "treat." For the sake of formality and 
fun, he refused, whereupon the boys gathered him 
and made for the spring with the view of ducking 
him, and when he had scuffled long enough, or when 
it was likely they were about to effect their purpose, 
he yielded to the demand. A basket of ginger cakes 
was sent for which he had left with a boy in the 
woods, and amid a general jollification they ate the 
cakes and took the balance of the day for a holiday. 
If any of the students had old grudges they could 
fight it out now; but usually all was forgotten and 
each went home happy and ready to go to work next 
day on the farm, where the entire vacation was spent 
at labor until school began again. 

Good old primitive days, you fled with our child- 
hood! Your simplicity and purity and joy still cling 
to us in life; and sweetened by recollections that 
will never die, we shall carry your lessons and bene- 



THE OLD FIELD SCHOOL. Ill 

dictions upon our hearts to the grave and to heaven. 
You didn't have many and great things of value to 
treasure, but what you did g-ive us was g-ood and 
precious as the pure unalloyed g-old of childhood edu- 
cation and bliss. 




Cut off the Nose to Spite the Face* 



^TpHIS subject might be more classically stated 
*"- thus: The amputation of the nasal protuber- 
ance in order to injure the physiognomy; but it is all 
the same in plain English. Some people do not like 
commonplace subjects or phraseology: and yet the 
wisdom of the sage is often found in quaint old 
proverbs and maxims sometimes couched in the com- 
monest language, if not in slang itself. The fact is 
that much of our strongest English begins with the 
common people; and not unfrequently slang pushes 
its way into the fashionable circle of Webster & Co., 
in spite of all the war made upon its struggle for 
independence and recognition. But to our subject. 
There are a great many different kind of fools in 
the world. Some are fools for one thing and some 
for another — some for money, but mostly for the 
want of sense. There are learned fools and igno- 
rant fools; but the biggest fool I know of is the fool 
who cuts off his nose to spite his face. Neverthe- 
less there are but few of the human race who have 
not put the knife to the nose. Wisdom itself seems 
not at all times to be a safeguard against this stu- 
pendous folly; and even goodness occasionally de- 
nasalizes the beauty of its physiognomy. Old and 
young, great and small, wise and ignorant, without 
regard to color, condition, or sex, are guilty of this 
deliberate crime; and no sort of experience seems to 

(112) 




J,otToN 



CUT OFF THE NOSF TO SPITF, THF FACE. 



CUT OFF THE NOSE TO SPITE THE FACE. 115 

guard the human race against this or any other 
form of suicide. There are several conditions of the 
mind under which this sin is perpetrated: 

1. A state of desperation. A large number of 
people in the world are given to melancholy, hypo- 
chondria, despair. Such people are always more or 
less in the blues; and they blue everything about 
them. It does'nt take more than an ounce of blue- 
ing to blue a whole hogshead of water; and one gen- 
uine case of moral or mental dyspepsia in a neigh- 
borhood will make everybody in it hang out the cold 
wave flag. Nothing and nobody appears good or 
gracious to people who are born tired, sad or sorrow- 
ful; and life, or destiny, with such people is shroud- 
ed in the grewsome gloom of a somber hopelessness. 
The green grass and the bright day are blue. There 
is a jar of jangling discord in the melodies of musi- 
cal nature. There is a blot upon the fairest pros- 
pect and a doubt of the finest possibility; and there 
is nothing, for any length of time, which can awaken 
or cheer ambition or purpose, in the man who is al- 
ways looking upon the dark side of everything and 
the bad side of everybody. His lucid intervals are 
but the spasms of helpless relapses; and no man is 
so miserable to himself, or so disappointing to his 
fellows. His usual vocation is to cut off his nose to 
spite his face; for even when he would do good his 
evil is present with him. 

The grandest spirits have occasional fits of the 
nasal amputation performance. Napoleon was once 
on his way to the Seine to drown himself; and but 
for a friend he would have cheated history of its 
most dazzling chapter. Edgar A. Poe extinguished 



116 HARP OF IvlFE. 

the brightest lamp of poetic genius which ever burned 
in America. Saul, Brutus, Cato, Alexander and all 
who faltered before the peril of fate or despaired of 
ambition, cut off the nose to spite the face of a nobler 
manhood. Except for crime God alone has«the right 
to take life; and he who takes or mars his own, is 
but the murderer of self who blots out the star of 
hope and puts out the torch of immortality. 

Among the most fertile sources of this malady are 
business failure, disappointed ambition, wounded 
pride, incorrigible grief, unbearable affliction, a sense 
of shame, and unrequited love. A man loses his 
money and takes to whiskey, and his wife goes to 
the opium bottle. I knew a man who blew out his 
brains because he had the toothache; and I have known 
scores of lovers, who, when jilted by some accom- 
plished flirt, would write a farewell note to break her 
heart, when she had none, and then take a lover's leap 
into hell by suicide. Young man, always remember: 
"There's as good fish in the sea as were ever caught 
out" — if you only know how to fish. I have known 
mothers to pine with grief over a lost child and curse 
God; and when we run against God in malice we 
surely cut off the nose to spite the face, and forever. 
Let me say that greatness and goodness combined 
never commit suicide. Their motto is: Nil Desfter- 
andum. They never cut off the nose to spite the face 
in despair. 

2. The disposition to sulk. In a state of desper- 
ation a man fails to appreciate himself; in the sulks 
he always overestimates himself. In the sulking 
state a man is usually the victim of offended sensi- 
bility, or of pertinacious obstinacy, and he with- 



CUT OFF THE NOSE TO SPITE THE FACE. 117 

draws from the field of duty and takes a back seat 
with the view of spiting - somebody else — but with 
the only result as a rule of cutting* off his own nose 
to spite his own face. Egotism and self-importance 
are the rock of offense upon which he stumbles and 
breaks his nose. Sooner or later he loses the re- 
spect and confidence of his neighbors; and although 
in any given case he may worry and hurt them he is 
sure in the end to be the only one who is injured. 
What a fool a sulker is, and yet there are thousands 
of just such fools in every grade of life who are sulk- 
ing away their otherwise useful and fruitful exist- 
ence. Some sulk with God, and the truth is, God 
has to be very particular and polite to get along with 
a good many church members, to say nothing of the 
pastor and the rest of the brethren. 

How many illustrations of this folly I have seen! 
A boy sulks with his father and refuses to eat sup- 
per — cuts off his nose to spite his face. A little girl 
wanted to die in order to spite her mother, and her 
only regret was that she could not be present to see 
how badly her mother would feel over it. A young 
clerk quits the store in a huff, expecting a commit- 
tee to be sent after him inviting him back, only to 
learn that twenty boys were after his place and that 
he was not the kind of a fellow that the employer 
wanted. Conductor Johnson quit the railroad and 
sulked two weeks, believing the road could not get 
along without him; but after two years he got a po- 
sition on another road. Old Deacon Sulkins sat 
about under the trees on Sunday morning, when the 
brethren were assembled for church, for several 
years; and the seed ticks nearly ate him up before 



118 HARP OF LIFE. 

anybody paid an}' attention to him. Alas! for the 
poor fools who pout! The busy world has no time 
to pay attention to them; and it does not matter how 
bio- and important the}' once seemed, the}' o-row 
beautifully less every day they sit back or pull out 
from the great work of life. Like dead men they are 
soon forgotten; and it were better for the sulker that 
he had hanged himself when a potato vine would 
have held his weight. 

3. Those who take revenge or are quick at resent- 
ment. God has reserved the right of revenge him- 
self. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord;" and 
again said Jesus: "Put up thy sword: the}' that take 
the sword shall perish by the sword." No man ever 
took vengeance in his own hand that did not find it a 
boomerang to hit and hurt him back. Every time 
he cuts off his nose he spites his own face in the end. 
Better turn the other cheek when the one is smitten 
— return good for evil and blessing for cursing — and 
thus for the good of your enemy heap coals of fire 
upon his head. The law of love and forgiveness, of 
forbearance and mercy, has never yet proven a fail- 
ure; and in every instance I have ever known it has 
conquered enmity and malice at last. In the course 
of my life I have tried both; but I have never yet 
seen love and kindness fail to conquer. On the con- 
trary, I have never known revenge to bind up a 
wound, heal a feud or cure the malady of anger and 
resentment in a neighborhood. As love begets love, 
so revenge begets revenge: and there is no instance I 
have ever known where revenge was taken, that the 
avenger did not cut off his nose to spite his face. 
The man who takes revenge wrongs his own soul. 



CUT OEF THE NOSE TO SPITE THE FACE. 119 

The Government has a right to vindicate justice — 
a nation in self-defense or in the maintenance of prin- 
ciples may have a right to war, but never in the 
sense of revenge. It is but mercy to man to hold up 
principles and sustain the dignity of law. God com- 
mands us to obey the powers that be — render unto 
Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and in the ab- 
sence of law and order in our country to-day, we see 
the reign of vengeance at the hands of the mob, or 
the men who take the law into their own hands. To 
keep down the spirit of personal revenge is to vindi- 
cate and inculcate Christianity; and when religion is 
at a low spiritual ebb justice is dethroned and the 
lyncher's rope and the shotgun become the remedy 
among men for the protection of their rights. Every 
community has to suffer the penalty of every unpun- 
ished crime; and every community is responsible for 
putting vengeance into the hands of its individual 
citizens. 

Some of the greatest and best men I have ever 
known have yielded to Christ's doctrine of non-re- 
sistance to evil. I have known two Baptist minis- 
ters who submitted to the horse whip because of 
their fidelity to the gospel; and in both cases their 
persecutors came to grief at the hands of their own 
unpardonable crime. Sam Jones is the only preacher 
I ever knew who could whip his assailant and main- 
tain his reputation and usefulness; but we must re- 
member that he was most fiercely attacked and 
under circumstances so aggravating and perilous 
that but few men would have had time to think, for- 
bear, or have done otherwise. Again, we must re- 
member, too, that there is but one Sam Jones in the 



120 HARP OF LIFE. 

world, and it is impossible to imitate Him, either in 
preaching or fighting, with any degree of success. 
The old Hardshell brother in Alabama did better 
than Sam under the circumstances. He permitted 
his assailant to smite him on one cheek and then he 
turned the other; and he said: "The Scripture hav- 
ing been fulfilled, I tuck Bill Sanders right betwixt 
the eyes with a sockdolager." 

At all events, the Christian cannot afford to take 
revenge. His weapons of warfare are not of the 
world, the flesh, nor of the Devil. He is-here to suf- 
fer if need be for Christ; and he is commanded to be 
and do and speak as his Master did — otherwise he 
cannot even ask forgiveness without forgiving; and 
let me say that no man, much more the Christian, 
ever took revenge that did not cut off his nose to spite 
his face. 




A Pastor's Trials, 



^^TpHIS sketch is accompanied by a picture which is 
■^ sometimes true to life and which, in general, 
may symbolize many of a pastor's difficulties in rela- 
tion to his work. You see him here upon his knees 
in prayer at one of the homes embraced in his circle 
of visitation. The mother of the family is trying* 
to join her pastor in supplication at the family altar, 
but her children know little or nothing- of such occa- 
sions. Two of the boys are in a tussle upon the 
floor; one of the girls sits upright upon the sofa; 
another girl comes around and stares in the face of 
the pastor, while the youngest, thinking that her 
mother is in distress, stands and bawls at the top of 
her voice. All the time the pastor, though praying 
aloud, can scarcely distinguish his own utterances and 
hardly knows what he is praying about. You may 
think this is an overdrawn picture, but every city 
pastor can point you to some if not many such cases. 
Many a time we read and pray in a family when it 
seems impossible to accomplish any good under the 
circumstances; and often when such occasions have 
passed we heartily wish we had not attempted any- 
thing like devotion with the family visited. 

The misfortune here lies in the fact that very few 
Christian families have any home training in religion, 
or in anything else that is good. Not one family in 
twenty, among modern church members, knows any- 

(123) 



124 HARP OF LIFE. 

thing* of a family altar; and hence during such occa- 
sional exercises at the hands of the pastor when he 
reads and prays in the family, the children often 
manifest the greatest ignorance and ill-breeding. 
The day of family prayer, of reading the Bible, or 
t)f religious conversation in the family is passed in 
this country. People go to church, prayer meeting 
and Sunday school — they read perhaps their religious 
newspapers and study the Sunday school helps — but 
when the Sunday business is over this is the most of 
religion with the most of church members — nine- 
tenths of them. Say what you will, family religion 
under any formal observance is a dead issue in Amer- 
ica at the close of the nineteenth century, so far as 
the mass of the church members is concerned; and 
it is no wonder a pastor's trials so often take form 
and shape in this direction. 

Even in the house of God many church members 
do not bow their heads in prayer. Scores of them 
sit bolt upright and gaze about over the auditorium 
while the minister supplicates God. Surely no hea- 
then would so act in the house of his god; but it is 
- not to be wondered at that our children are worse 
than the heathen, when they see older people, per- 
haps their mothers and fathers, without anything of 
devotional reverence in the attitude of public prayer. 
The fact is that much of this gross and uncourteous 
sin arises from the lazy habit of sitting in the pew 
to pray. People who are too lazy to stand up, or too 
proud to kneel in prayer are not apt to pray sitting 
upon a pew or lying in a bed. The fact is that the 
only outward form of prayer which corresponds with 
the spirit of humility and devotion is the bended 



a pastor's trials. 125 

knee which betokens a bowed and broken heart; and, 
whether in private or public, we supplicate God in 
earnest, or praise him with adoration, we get upon 
our knees to do it. I grant the hypocrite may kneel, 
and so may the Irypocrite give and do and preach the 
gospel; but this is no argument against the only true 
and symbolic attitude of prayer, or any other appro- 
priate way of doing good. Surely if we were bowed 
oftener and more reverently there would not be so 
many irreverent grown people, nor so many ill-be- 
haved children, to continually disgrace and mock the 
' 'sweet hour of prayer" at the house of God or in the 
home of Christian families. 

But this is only one form of the pastor's trials. 
He meets them on every hand in a thousand shapes. 
Sometimes he has to stand and knock at the door for 
an incredible space of time, and then be informed 
that the sister is not in — that is, to see him. Again, 
after a season of knocking in midwinter, he is ad- 
mitted and ushered into a cold parlor where he sits 
bareheaded for half an hour for the sister to dress; 
and after a brief cold spell of conversation and 
prayer he retires with a new case of "grippe," or 
pneumonia, which lays him up for a week or month. 
Often the same experience is endured at funerals, 
where everything must be done with a bare head, 
whether in the cold, damp, deadly room where the 
funeral is preached, or at the cemetery where the 
thermometer is down about zero. Much of a pas- 
tor's work on these lines is murder in the first degree; 
and yet if he did not do it under the circumstances 
and according to regulation custom he would not 
hold the affections of his people, upon whose selfish 



126 HARP OF I<IFE. 

altars he sacrifices sometimes his life. Often he has 
to preach a funeral, too, when all the babies of the 
family and the neighborhood are brought in to cry; 
and, worse than all, at times, members of the be- 
reaved family shriek and agonize throughout the 
service as if God were dead and the grave was the 
end of human existence. Alas! for the faith and 
piety of many people who call themselves Chris- 
tians! I generally notice, however, that the hus- 
band, and sometimes the wife, who takes on most at 
a funeral, who wants to jump into the grave and be 
buried with the body of the departed companion, 
will get married in about six months. I have seen a 
great deal of awful hypocrisy and mockery in the 
apparent grief manifested at funerals, especially 
upon the part of husbands and wives; and it is one 
of the shocking trials of a pastor's confidence and of 
his life. 

Again, along this line a pastor is often reproached 
because he is not omniscient, omnipresent, if not om- 
nipotent. He must know when any one of his mem- 
bers falls sick, or else he is abused and talked about; 
and not infrequently some other minister from another 
church or denomination is thrown up to him who has 
been sent for, or who slyly comes in to take the ad- 
vantage of him. So, too, when you have been a long 
time getting around to see a good family: "Come 
in, we are glad to know that you have not entirely 
forsaken us. Bro. Johnson, our former pastor, al- 
ways came to see us once a month; and Dr. Thomas, 
the Methodist minister, comes in quite often." It 
takes the patience of Job and the meekness of Moses 
to stand this and smile away your chagrin; and it is 



A PASTOR'S TRrAIvS. 127 

with like forbearance you must meet an offended 
family on the street whose children won't speak to 
you. The old folks, you know, will appear coolly 
clever to you, and perhaps deceive you as to their 
feeling's sometimes, but the children are always hon- 
est in their manner towards you, and let the old folks' 
cat out of the wallet every time. 

A pastor's troubles arise occasionally from bad 
financial management, either upon his part or upon 
that of the church; but it makes no difference as to the 
cause, the effect is the same if he gets into embar- 
rassment by debt, and he had better get out of his pas- 
torate or get out of debt, one or the other. Again, 
circumstances conspire which make a pastor feel, 
sometimes, that he had better speak to a good brother 
about his wife, or to a good sister about her husband; 
but no matter, if the subject involves a scandal and the 
parties have any influence or money, the pastor had 
better offer his resignation, unless he is stronger than 
money or social power in the church of which he is 
overseer. In many such cases a pastor will soon learn 
that it is not best, whatever his province may be as 
teacher and leader of the flock, always to take the sheep 
by the horns; and that when a bad case of discipline 
must be adjudicated he had better get behind a tree, 
that is the church, and get the sheep by the tail. In 
all church troubles the pastor must make the church 
responsible for its discipline; and the less he has to 
do with such matters, personally and directly, the 
better for his position and influence. Let him stand 
in front of his church in doctrine and example ; be- 
hind it in government and discipline. Even in mat- 
ters where he would be peacemaker between indi- 



128 HARP OF LIFE. 

viduals or families, he is likely to get into trouble 
enough; and always in trouble of this kind he must 
lay his hand gently upon the back of the sheep and 
not where he will butt or kick. 

The pastor sometimes endures trials from what he 
preaches from the pulpit. He must not only be pop- 
ular in his manners and intercourse with the people, 
as wise as Solomon and as sagacious as Paul, but he 
must be popular in the pulpit. This does not mean, 
except with some people, that he must compromise 
the truth of God; but it does mean that he must be 
brave, faithful, loving, constant, earnest, powerful 
and overwhelming, if he would popularize himself 
and a whole gospel. Timidity and insipidity, nor 
self-seeking and time-serving, can ever make a 
whole gospel or a gospel preacher popular. The 
most popular man, often, is the man who makes 
the most enemies and endures the greatest persecu- 
tion; and so long as you can't kill such a man he will 
have the largest following and wield the mightiest 
influence among the masses. He will suffer much, 
but he will have the greatest joy; and to such a man 
the cavil and the criticism of the weak-kneed, or the 
vicious, are but the wind which makes the kite rise 
against the string which God holds in His almighty 
hand. 

Finally, there are many vexatious causes which 
trouble a pastor's life and which he must avoid. 
He must not have any pets in his church; he must 
not be too familiar with any; and he must always 
conquer unkindness by long suffering charity — love. 
A pastor's temper must always be in subordination; 
and he must always be upon his guard with his 



a pastor's trials. 129 

tongue when he speaks to or about his fellow-men. 
As to manner and methods and things indifferent, a 
thousand thing's are lawful which are not expedient; 
and no fool upon earth — nay, no unsanctified wise 
man — can be a pastor. He has to be as much like his 
model Master as possible — as wise as a serpent and 
as harmless as a dove. The pastor who is a fool or 
a bad man is the most dangerous and deadly exponent 
of Christianity; and it is no wonder that the New 
Testament not only says, "Lay hands suddenly upon 
no man," but prescribes the most extraordinary and 
perfect qualifications and characteristics for those 
who seek the office of a bishop. "Oh, God," we 
sometimes exclaim, "who is sufficient for these 
thing's?" and then we hear God answer back as he 
did to Paul: "My grace is sufficient for thee." 
Nothing* but the grace of absolute consecration can 
qualify the wisest man who would exemplify, preach 
and popularise a whole gospel. 



Feeding Pigs on Diamonds, 



/07HRIST never made any mistakes. He never 
^^ was at fault in wisdom or morals. He was 
unerringly accurate, just and good. He was abso- 
lutely perfect. My greatest delight is to study the 
Bible in the light of its invulnerable and immutable 
truthfulness; and you can neither add to it nor take 
from it, multiply it nor divide it, nor reduce it to 
fractions. It is all truth and whole truth; and we 
can judge of what we cannot understand in it by 
what we know of it. In all that it teaches practical 
and tangible to human reason and experience we find 
a perfect corroboration of all we believe. There is 
never any conflict between faith and experience, nor 
between experience and reason in the religion of 
Jesus Christ; and we discover that He who is the in- 
carnation of the Godhead is the impersonation of 
common sense to our judgment upon all the lines of 
wisdom and duty. What he is practically to our 
heads He is experimentally to our hearts, and we 
know the unknown by knowing the known. I often 
feel like the old saint who replied to the scoffing 
skeptic: That having found the Bible always true in 
what he could understand, he was persuaded that it 
must be true in what he could not know. 

My sketch is based upon one of the common sense 
admonitions of the Master. He specifically charged 
His disciples not to cast pearls before swine. Not 



(130) 




Illllllllll! „ 

»iiiiiiii'» 

Jl'Jllflli 
FEEDING PIGS ON DIAMONDS 



FEEDING PIGS ON DIAMONDS. 133 

only will hogs trample your jewels under their feet, 
but they will turn and rend you for dispensing- that 
sort of pabulum. The hog" likes only that which is 
palatable to his taste, or suitable to his appetite; 
and it is useless, therefore, to feed diamonds to pig's. 
Holy things cannot be appreciated by dogs, and 
thus we are taught to be "as wise as serpents and 
harmless as doves' ' in preaching the gospel or in giv- 
ing advice to men. To answer a fool according to his 
folly depends upon conditions or circumstances; and 
when the conditions or circumstances which would 
make the answer proper or practicable do not exist, 
God tells us not to answer a fool according to his 
folly. In fact, we cannot always tell when we are 
going to cast pearls before swine, or give holy things 
to dogs. We are not as wise as Jesus was, and it 
becomes all the more necessary that we study men 
and avoid the chances for doing harm as well as 
watch the opportunities for doing good. There is a 
time to speak and a time to be silent; and yet it is 
better to speak sometimes when we mistake the hog 
than be silent and mistake the sheep. The old 
proverb is a good rule to go by and yet it must have 
some exceptions in our ignorance. 

There is a great deal of misguided zeal, or mis- 
applied effort upon the part of some Christians. 
For instance I knew a minister once who happened 
to be at a party where a dance was instituted. 
He was playfully invited by a gay young lady to 
dance with her in a set that was being formed, 
whereupon he proposed having prayer before the 
dance began. It shocked the young lady, and dis- 
gusted the company, broke up the party and did 



134 HARP OF IylFE. 

more Harm than good. The preacher was a bigger 
fool than the girl. He should either have gotten 
away in time, or else have declined in pleasantry or 
gentle rebuke. The circumstances were such as to 
forbid any appreciation of his proposal for prayer; 
and the fact is the place and company were such as 
to forbid, without being called upon, the very idea. 
That preacher may have been a talented man, but 
he didn't have any sense; and he evidently knew 
nothing of human nature, or how to take advantage 
of circumstances to do greater good by being silent 
than by * 'shooting off his mouth" to no purpose. 

I remember one day seeing a crank, as every one 
regarded him, on the street car handing out cards 
and circulars and emphasizing in strong terms that 
he was working for the Lord Jesus Christ! Of 
course, everybody was laughing at him and his man- 
ner of doing things; and it was a fair illustration of 
casting pearls before swine. It did no good, but did 
harm — not because he was doing wrong -per se, but 
because of the time and place and method of proce- 
dure. There was nothing improper in distributing 
his cards and circulars; but to impose his harangue 
upon a promiscuous audience where he was not ex- 
pected or invited, and that too upon a public car 
which carried passengers for pay, was distasteful to 
men and injurious to the cause of religion. The 
conditions were such as to render his effort, however 
good and well-meant, useless; and, worse than all, 
they were such as to turn himself and the cause 
he represented to ridicule. Even the good people on 
the car were shocked and ashamed, and it goes with- 
out saying that the wicked scoffed and blasphemed 



FEEDING PIGS ON DIAMONDS. 135 

the religion of Christ. The man seemed to have 
talent and ability, but he too had none of that sanc- 
tified common sense which makes a man as wise as 
a serpent and as harmless as a dove. Paul never 
made a mistake of that kind. He was "all thing's to 
all men" that he might save some, even if he had to 
catch them by guile. 

There are many instances in which most of us 
have erred upon this very important line. Nine 
times out of ten it is breath wasted to argue with an 
infidel, or a man of prejudice, or to give advice to 
the vicious or malignant sinner. Who has little 
enough sense to walk up to a crowd of "toughs" in- 
dulging in profanity and vulgarity and reprove their 
wickedness? The hogs would tusk you, the dogs 
would bite you, and your diamonds of rebuke would 
be lost and trampled in the dust. I have tried a 
number of times to correct boys on the streets for 
gambling with marbles, "playing for keeps" — but I 
have seldom done anything more than cast pearls 
before pigs, and young ones at that. Old Bro. 
Reuben Day of West Tennessee was on his way to 
preach one Sunday. He came across a lot of boys 
playing marbles on the street. He expostulated 
and told them the sin of it. "Boys," said he, "do 
you know what day this is?" One of the boys with 
a quizzical look and a mischievous twinkle of the 
eye, looked up and said: "Yes, old Reuben Day!" 
Bro. Day rode on a wiser man. He had been cast- 
ing diamonds to pigs. Old Uncle Allen Turner, 
once a Methodist preacher in Georgia, came across a 
man playing marbles with his children one day, and 
he solemnly said: "My brother, I will testify against 



136 HARP OF LIFE. 

you in heaven." The man replied: " You'd better 
let me take your interrogatories; I'm not certain of 
meeting* you there. ' ' Pearls before swine and badly 
hurt at that. 

There are a goodly number of people who are al- 
ways asking* foolish questions; and to attempt to an- 
swer them is not only to cast pearls before swine, 
but to make a fool of yourself and to intensify the 
folly of the puzzle finder. I don't know how many 
people I have met who wanted to know who Cain's 
wife was that he knew in the land of Nod; or who 
Melchizedek was; or how God started; or why sin 
came into the world; or how divine sovereignty and 
human freedom could be reconciled in the salvation 
of a soul. These people did not propose to believe 
in Christ until all these and more questions could be 
answered; and if you had answered every question 
they would not have been satisfied. They were born 
with an interrogation point upon their brains; and 
they would have originated other questions to be 
settled as fast as you could satisfy their incorrigible 
curiosity. There is no use and no hope in answer- 
ing these fools according to their folly. It is feed- 
ing pigs on diamonds. You may do good for evil, 
bless for cursing, and seek to reclaim ingratitude, or 
cover the head of wrong with coals of fire, but you 
can never do any good by trying to straighten a man 
in the shape of an interrogation point. 

Again, there are those who are reprobate in their 
wickedness, and to whom the preaching of the gos- 
pel would be useless. There is a statute of limita- 
tion in the economy of God as well as under the 
constitution of human governments. There is a sin 



FEEDING- PIGS ON DIAMONDS. 137 

which is unpardonable and which may not be prayed 
for; and it is casting- pearls before swine to plead 
with men and women given over to delusion and to 
believe a lie that they may be damned. The more 
you talk to such sinners the worse they become; and 
it is a fearful thought that to such the gospel be- 
comes a savor of death unto death. I have seen 
some men and women to whom it was useless to talk, 
and for whom all prayer and eifort proved in vain. 
Of course it is seldom that we may have reason to 
believe such a state exists in the life of a human be- 
ing; but when it is recognized I believe we must heed 
the admonition of the Master not to cast pearls be- 
fore swine. I know an old gray headed man who 
ridicules Christ whenever I speak to him about his 
soul. He tramples the diamonds of God's truth be- 
neath his feet. He rends my heart with the malig- 
nity of his infidelity, though to me he is otherwise 
kind and considerate. There seems to be no hope; 
and I have concluded that it is wrong for me longer 
to cast pearls before him and hear my Savior malig- 
ned. Would God that he could have mercy; but 
there can be no mercy when Jesus is persistently 
rejected and the Holy Spirit resisted and grieved 
away. 

In fine, it must be remembered at best that the un- 
renewed sinner has no taste or appetite for religion, 
just as a pig has none for diamonds. The taste and 
appetite have to be created, and the preacher of the 
gospel has to be very careful of prayer and study to 
know how to get the subject of salvation before the 
mind of the lost and perverted man, or woman, or 
child. The gospel feast is rich and dainty, but it is 



138 HARP OF LIFE. 

revolting - to the sin-sick soul. It is a bitter pill to 
the taste but sweet to the stomach; and he who 
knows how to get it into the mouth and get the sin- 
ner to swallow it under the Holy Spirit, will seldom 
feed pigs in vain upon diamonds. The rarest gift of 
the preacher is the tact of getting the Bread of Life 
into the mouth of the lost sinner and in getting 
him to swallow it. 





PS 

u 

w 
p 

< 

xn 



The Specter of Lost Opportunities* 



(QAUL was about to fight his last battle. His 
^-^ army was encamped at the foot of Gilboa, and 
the hosts of Philistia, like grasshoppers, were gath- 
ered at Shunem. He was dismayed at the awful 
contest before him, and he knew not what to do. 
Samuel, with whom he had broken, and who had 
hitherto been his friend and counsellor, was dead. 
God was his enemy and had forsaken him. Saul 
consulted dream and prophet, Urim and Thummim, 
in vain. No voice came up out of the dead silence of 
God about him, no ray of light broke from the awful 
darkness above him. His persistent disobedience to 
God, his malignant jealousy towards David, had 
ruined him. All his hopes and prospects were 
blighted; and the crown and scepter of his kingdom 
were lost to his house. The son of Jesse was to sit 
upon his throne and now in the desperate conclusion 
of. his career he was left to himself and his fate with- 
out the guidance or help of God. 

In disguise he turned to the Witch of Endor. She 
knew him not; but at his request she called up, by 
God's permission and purpose, the ghost of Samuel, 
even to her own dismay and terror. The old prophet 
told the ghastly Saul of his doom on the morrow, 
and chided him for his sins and his rebellion to- 
wards God; and when he had concluded his fate- 
ful sentence he left the terrified king lying stretched 

(141) 



142 HARP OF LIFE. 

upon the* earth. It turned out as Samuel pre- 
dicted, and upon Gilboa's gory heights Saul and 
his sons died upon their own swords. The armies 
of Israel were defeated and the land was left in sub- 
jection to the gods of the Philistines, to be restored 
by David to whom the crown and scepter of Saul 
descended. The house of Saul became as a dead 
dog, and Samuel, at the cave of Endor, was the 
specter of Saul's lost opportunities and blighted 
hopes. He might have kept Samuel and Samuel's 
God upon his side. They would have wrought for 
him a different destiny, but he broke with them and 
they with him forever. Like Napoleon at Waterloo, 
Saul at Gilboa beheld his star fade into viewless and 
endless night. 

The chances of Saul were magnificent when he 
was chosen King of Israel. Physically and intel- 
lectually he was head and shoulders above his peo- 
ple — chosen of God to his position and received with 
loud acclaim by his country. He was a giant in bat- 
tle, and as a general and leader of Israel he was 
sometimes brilliant and successful. He never, how- 
ever, became practically sovereign of more than the 
central part of his country. He might have been 
the monarch of the united Kingdom of Israel instead 
of the pastoral chief of a few amalgamated tribes, 
if he had been faithful and obedient to God. On the 
contrary he was "proud, selfish, reserved, obsti- 
nately stiff-necked and profane;" and in place of be- 
ing God's servant in the rulership of his people, he 
sought absolute sovereignty in himself. After the 
slaughter of the Amalekites he was rejected on ac- 
count of Agag and the spoils spared from destruc- 



THE SPECTER OE EOST OPPORTUNITIES. 143 

tion; and from this point, like a coach cut loose from 
its engine, he moved on and slowed up, without God's 
favor or help, to the end of his career. His jealousy 
of David, in the face of God's rejection, embittered 
his life and ate up his spirit until the giant became a 
pigmy; and the battle of Gilboa terminated a life of 
failure which might otherwise have been crowned 
with imperishable results and glory. 

The great opportunity lost in Saul's life was the 
failure to keep God on his side. If God be for us 
none can be against us. The sword of the Lord and 
Gideon was invincible. Saul was put into God's 
business as God's vicegerent in the leadership of his 
people, and in such a situation his dependence upon 
God was imperative and absolute. Had he been 
Pharaoh, disconnection from God or opposition to Him 
would come within the pale of being overruled for 
good as a wicked instrument in the accomplishment 
of divine purposes; but he was God's "anointed," 
and as such he must believe and obey. Hence, in his 
rebellious attitude to God he was rejected and 
ruined. God blesses and crowns with glory the 
work of a Cyrus, His "anointed" also; but Solomon 
must obey or else the glory of God will depart from 
him and his house. God may allow the wicked, for a 
purpose, to nourish and fatten, but he chastens, and 
if need be destroys, His own from the earth when 
they follow not His counsels or violate His laws. It 
was thus that Saul lost his great opportunity, and 
having lost this, all other opportunities for success 
were but mockeries at his efforts. It was for this 
that Samuel's ghost at Endor stood before him as 
the specter of his lost opportunities. 



144 HARP OF LIFE. 

What specters must such lost opportunities pre- 
sent to the lost in hell! The supreme chance of sal- 
vation to the soul is the greatest opportunity of a 
man's life. To lose that is to swallow up every 
other chance a mortal has for good here or hereafter, 
l^aith in Christ alone stamps the soul, and what it 
does for Christ's sake, with the only seal of immor- 
tality, and to lose the soul is not only to sink the ship 
of life into the bottom of the ocean, but to bury with 
it the precious cargo it would carry to eternity. No 
ghost will be so ghastly as the specter of eternal 
despair which shall forever cry to' the lost soul, * ' Yon 
might have been!" The specters of a guilty con- 
science, impersonated and mirrored by guilty deeds, 
will be aggravation enough; but the specter of the 
lost opportunity, glaring in the light of a thousand 
invitations and warnings unheeded in the past, will 
be the most hideous and tormenting of all the crea- 
tions of a lost soul. It will be the ghost of eternal 
failure, illuminated by the superscription of a re- 
jected Savior; and it is no wonder that Revelation 
represents the lost as gnashing their teeth and curs- 
ing God and the Lamb. Chagrin and profanity fol- 
low disappointment here; and this same character- 
istic will follow man's greatest failure to the land 
of specters which are to mock human misery for- 
ever. 

Next to this is the failure of the Christian to lay 
up treasures in heaven, to win the crown of good 
works, to carry golden sheaves, instead of withered 
leaves, into the garners of glory. We tread upon 
pearls and diamonds every day, and we are picking 
up shells and catching butterflies and plucking au- 



the specter oe eost opportunities, 145 

tumn leaves along* the shores of the eternal ocean 
upon which we are soon to launch. We are laying 
Up treasures upon earth, grasping- for pleasure and 
crowning- life with the fading- wreath of human hon- 
or. We let slip a thousand opportunities for win- 
ning- souls, doing good, making sacrifices, which 
would put a thousand stars into our eternal crown. 
The world is perishing at our feet, and yet we hoard 
money, indulge passion and live at "ease in Zion." 
Millions of sinners in the midst of millions of Chris- 
tians may well exclaim, ' 'No man cares for my soul!" 
The fields are white unto the harvest, and yet how 
few the laborers! God calls to duty, and holds out 
the crown of reward in vain to the great mass of 
Christians. What opportunities are being lost! How 
their specters do even now flit before us! Alas! will 
they be about our bedside when we come to die? 
May they not shadow us to the very gate of heaven? 
What if they should cast a shadow behind us upon 
the sea of glass when we come to stand before the 
great white throne! 

Think of "wood, hay, stubble," instead of "gold, 
silver, precious stones," at the judgment — the "loss" 
of the foolish builder, "saved so as by fire!" But 
alas! think of the millions, if saved, who have pro- 
fessed the name of Christ and gone to God and eter- 
nity empty handed, with a thousand lost opportuni- 
ties — the spectral regret of a useless life. 

"Who, when the pilot warns, would lose the tide 

By casting- pebbles on the glassy sea? 

Who to weave garlands in the flowing lea 
Would far from home the waning hours abide? 
What racer from his course would turn aside 



146 HARP uF LIFE. 

To pick up apples from Hesperian tree? 
What soldier, striving- for the mastery, 
Waste in Campanian sloth his manhood's pride?" 

"Christian, be wise! The tide is at its height, 
Which may waft thee to the wished- for shore: 

Thy home's away, and swift the moments' flight; 
The goal, the crown's right on, thine eyes before; 

The trumpet calls to gird thee for the fight; 

Hark! now it sounds, but soon shall sound no more!" 

There are many opportunities for evil as well as 
good, and the wicked and the Devil are using* their 
opportunities well. From this standpoint the great 
poet said: 

"O opportunity! thy guilt is great." 

Treason, temptation, scandal, intemperance, lust, 
falsehood, dishonesty — every form of sin and death 
and ruin are the subjects of deadly opportunities 
which await the destruction of man. It were good 
that opportunity could here be lost, and such oppor- 
tunities lost would be angels instead of g-hastly and 
ghostly specters. In view of such opportunities for 
evil, how important to seize upon every opportunity 
for doing- g-ood. The Devil's opportunities, at the 
hands of the wicked, can only be met by God's op- 
portunities at the hands of His people. God has 
g-iven us the ability and the occasions which, joined 
together, make the thousand opportunities we have 
for the achievement of our glorious destinies; and 
what a multitude of specters, every day, grin upon 
us, as we remember that we have wasted God's op- 
portunities and allowed the Devil's opportunities to 
end in the successful ruin of our fellows! God help 
us to use His opportunities, and to escape their spec- 
ters, lost! 



THE SPECTER OF EOST OPPORTUNITIES. 147 

Truly did Carlyle say: "A word spoken in season, 
at the right moment, is the mother of ages," and 
truly did Shakespeare say: 

"A little fire is quickly trodden out, 
Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench." 

I do 11 ot know whether a great writer was true or 
not when he said: " There is never but one opportu- 
nity of a kind;" but I do know that Schiller was 
right when he wrote: "The May of life only blooms 
once." The sure way to miss success, in anything, 
is to miss the opportunity, and one of the worst forms 
of misery is the reflection that our failures are the 
offspring of our lost opportunities. The good Lord 
deliver us from their specters! Help us to strike the 
iron while it is hot; and, if it be cold, help us to keep 
on striking it until it gets hot. 




Counting Noses. 



T[N the picture facing- this sketch is a preacher 
■"> counting- noses. These noses are the escutcheon 
upon the flag- which floats from the steeple of his 
church. It is not the bloodstained and glorious ban- 
ner of the cross, but the mottled banner of noses 
which he flaunts and waves to a perishing- world — 
not to save souls, but to let mankind know how 
many members he has and what a multitude belong-s 
to his denomination! This is the flag - of his glory; 
and he not only counts his noses by number, but by 
classification. "I am pastor of a church of a thou- 
sand members," said a preacher the other day; "and 
I number among my people much wealth, intelligence 
and social standing! Ahem!" Selah! 

This man in the picture is counting noses — all 
sorts of noses — noses red and noses blue, crooked 
and snub noses, short and long noses, big and little 
noses, rich and poor, learned and illiterate, pretty 
and ugly noses; and it is his meat and his drink to 
number the financial and the social noses. The poor 
and the bad noses only count for numbers to the re- 
porter or Statistical Secretary. The pious and 
humble noses are good only for the prayer-meeting, 
the Sunday school, or the sick bed and the funeral; 
and even then, these noses are not of great impor- 
tance, unless Greek or Roman — bon ton. This pas- 
tor is much more interested in counting noses than 



(148) 




COUNTING NOSKS. 



COUNTING NOSES. 151 

souls, in estimating - wealth instead of piety, in re- 
garding fine folks rather than saints, in viewing 
time before eternity, in depending upon human above 
divine power. He is walking by sight rather than 
faith, and building on the sand; and if even upon the 
true Foundation, he is constructing his house of 
"wood, hay, stubble," instead of "gold, silver, pre- 
cious stones," which can alone stand the fiery test of 
the judgment day. 

He does not mind what kind of noses he counts 
just so they make numbers, sneeze dollars, or flour- 
ish in the style of the church. There is old "Red 
Nose," who gets drunk or sells whiskey- — but he 
gives money, and his family are a social ornament. 
He is beyond the discipline of the pious; and in fact, 
if the pious would, they couldn't touch this "gold 
bug" of the whiskey barrel for the nose counting 
pastor who holds to the theory of letting the wheat 
and the tares grow together in the church, instead 
of the "world," where God says they may grow. 
"Take him into the church, get his money, and pray 
for him afterwards," is the motto of the nose count- 
ing religion of our days; and just so with old brother 
"Blue Nose," a wealthy hypocrite, or brother "Snub 
Nose," a moneyed libertine, or brother "Hog Nose," 
the successful speculator, or brother "Fox Nose," 
the shrewd politician, or brother "Dog Nose," the 
flourishing extortionist. A prominent pastor said to 
me, not long ago: "It will take five years of spirit- 
ual purification to discipline my church. We have 
adulterers, liars, thieves, drunkards, murderers and 
all sorts of scoundrels in our membership, but we 
have not the moral purity or backbone to put them 



152 HARP OF LIFE. 

out as the Word of God demands." He is a good 
man in the right place, but this church has hitherto 
been the victim of the nose counter, whose motto is: 
"Give me noses, or give me death." 

This seems to have been the sin of David when he 
"numbered Israel" and provoked the wrath of God 
upon himself and the Nation. He wanted to take the 
census, the favorite custom of Augustus, during his 
reign over the Roman Empire; and David evidently 
did so in the spirit of pride and ambition, perhaps to 
find out his military footing. As Joab discovered, 
he could marshal about 1,300,000 men of war; and 
he likely wanted to let his neighbors know the fact. 
Possibly he contemplated further conquest upon his 
enemies, the extension of his borders and the achiev- 
ment of greater glory, and all this without consult- 
ing that God who alone was the glory and the 
strength of Israel. David forgot that God did not 
depend upon the many, and was not straitened on ac- 
count of the few and who never, whether under 
favorable or adverse circumstances, failed in the 
battles of His people when they trusted Him. Even 
old Joab saw and protested against the folly and the 
ruin of David's course; but so drowsy were David's 
spiritual sensibilities, so blind were his eyes by the 
dazzle of his ambitions, that he persisted in counting 
the noses of God's people who were to be of a "num- 
ber which no man could (or should attempt to) num- 
ber." The pride of numbers got the better of even 
good David — the man after God's own heart — and 
well nigh led him to his ruin. 

I am often struck with the conviction that this 
nose counting fad of the day is one of the sins of 



COUNTING NOSES. . 153 

Christianity in general. We are much given to the 
sin of numbering Israel for the sake of counting 
noses. This is the age of statistics and of statistical 
science, and for some purposes the census is invalu- 
able. It often seems, however, that the pride of 
numbers lies at the bottom of our nose enumeration. 
We do boast much as churches and denominations 
of our wealth, intelligence, social standing and 
positional importance! At a late great denomina- 
tional gathering it was loudly proclaimed: " We are 
the -people!" and we have heard the same boast in 
many places and by many different people. Denom- 
inational pride and eclat are held up as essential ele- 
ments of inspiration and growth in comparison with 
others, and it is a fact that now the different denom- 
inations vie with and watch each other with a jeal- 
ous respect to noses rather than principles. Almost 
always at our gatherings there is a nourish of trum- 
pets over our comparative statistics which often 
savors much of political display for political effect. 
I heard it said, recently, of a certain denominational 
assemblage that their deliberations were fraught 
with more discussions about the growth of a rival 
denomination than with their own development. 
They were hammering upon the idea of counting 
more noses than that other denomination, and I fear 
that there is too much of this sort of religious ambi- 
tion rife in the world. 

It used to be a contest of principles between denom- 
inations, but the fight has now shifted upon the arena 
of methods and manners. We have generally hushed 
about doctrines and ordinances in the churches, but 

under the pretense of love and fellowship, the con- 
11 



154 HARP OF LIFE. 

test for supremacy is just as intense and bitter as 
ever, if not more so. The rivalry is just as jealous 
and hateful as ever. They try to beat each other 
now by counting- the most noses instead of trying .to 
win the most souls to Christ. In many instances, it 
is simply a nasal protuberance conflict. Anybody 
can get into some churches, under any sort of a pro- 
fession of religion, and as a matter of policy, some 
churches hold to any shade of doctrine and to any 
form of ordinance as a bid to popular favor, and in 
opposition to their rivals. In order to catch the fish 
they set a fall and a finger trap which takes in go- 
ing up or down stream. All the younger denomina- 
tions, from whatever branch they spring, are organ- 
ized upon a compromise between the world and what 
they stigmatize as ' 'old orthodoxy, ' ' and consequent- 
ly the old doctrines of grace and the old forms of dis- 
cipline have well nigh passed away. About all that 
is required of a man now for church membership is a 
respectable support of his church, and it requires 
nothing, generally, to get in except to have his nasal 
census taken. The great thing now to do to surpass 
each other is to see who can be the most respectable 
and fashionable, who can display the finest church, 
preacher, choir, or organ, who can be the most so- 
ciable, cordial, and captivating in the house of God, 
and the like. 

Nevertheless, look out for the fellow, especially 
the preacher who pats you on the back and gushes 
over with brotherly love. He will get the last sheep 
in your flock if he can, and sometimes he is a wolf in 
sheep's clothing, a Jesuit. He is after noses and 
fleece, and it does not make much difference how he 



COUNTING NOSES. 155 

g-ets them, so it is done after the best methods and 
manners. He will advise your girls when they 
marry his boys to go with their husbands to his 
church, and when your boys marry his girls he will 
insist that the husband should always go with his 
wife to her church. He has no scruples in advising 
a man to join his church for the social and financial 
benefit which would thereby give him the loaves and 
the fishes in following- Christ; and in order to turn a 
member away from you he does not hesitate to stab 
you with any of your denominational peculiarities 
which he seeks by all means to make unpopular. 
As he is, so he makes his people — like people, like 
priest. The great point is to get everything, take 
the earth, count noses, numbers, wealth, influence, 
conversions or no conversions; and after this the 
work of making church partisans becomes the ad- 
junct and auxiliary of his nose counting factory. 

How do we forget that God and one are a big ma- 
jority! that this old world has always been morally 
dominated by a small minority! that the battles of 
God and religion have been won only by the right- 
eous, of whom "one can chase a thousand, and two 
put ten thousand to flight !" This curse of hanker- 
ing after numbers, wealth, respectability, eclat, at 
the expense of the gospel, of principle and piety — 
this thing of cultivating pride, ambition and all sorts 
of vices in the churches in order to maintain strength 
and popularity among men, and in order to wield 
denominational power — is the undermining curse of 
Protestantism at the close of the 19th century; and 
it will ultimately destroy Protestantism, if not 
checked in time. Vox fioftuli is not vox Dei in re- 



156 HARP OF I^IFK. 

lig-ion. Christianity cannot do in Rome as Rome 
does; and every compromise with the world for the 
purposes which I have specified is the old sin of 
Israel confederating- with surrounding* nations, and 
it is the sin by which God's ancient people were 
finally destroyed. Noses count nothing - with God, 
whether by number or classification, where regener- 
ation is wanting- and sanctification follows not. 
Power comes from God, whether in the many or the 
few; and God has never been dependent upon the hu- 
man forces of wealth, or position, or brains for the 
streng-th or permanency of his King-dom. 

On the contrary he has chosen the weak, the base, 
the things of naug-ht, the rather to achieve his pur- 
poses among* men. Very few and feeble, often, have 
been the resources by which God has performed 
wonders, wroug-ht revolutions, and broug-ht the 
King-dom and power of the Devil to naug-ht. God 
has wroug-ht more throug-h little nations and obscure 
men than by all the empires and princes the world 
ever produced. Let us, therefore, stop counting- 
noses for time and g-o to counting* souls for eternity. 
A nose is a g-ood and indispensible appendag-e, but is 
worthless when red with whiskey, or when rotten 
with the catarrh of social vices, and which never 
sniifs the breeze of purity and piety. God help us 
to turn back to apostolic times, apostolic doctrines, 
apostolic fellowship, apostolic methods and apostolic 
churches; and let us thank God for one thing- in the 
end: in heaven alone there'll be no counting- of noses. 
It will be useless to attempt it. John, in his 
vision upon Patmos, could count the Jews sealed 
from all the tribes: but when he turned to the white- 



COUNTING NOSES. 157 

robed throng- of the Gentiles redeemed, he exclaimed: 
M l saw a number which no man could number/" 
The statistician, the nose counter, will be out of a 
job in heaven. 



Ant'ny Over, 



^TpHIS illustration presents a preacher throwing 
*"* stones at his church; but, instead of hitting- the 
house, he throws over the building- and the Devil 
catches him out on the other side. This is something 
like the game we used to play at school, and which 
many of us will remember. One boy on one side of the 
house would cry, "Ant'ny Over," and throw the ball 
over to be caug-ht by somebody on the other side; and 
the catcher would run around and hit whomsoever he 
mig-ht meet or overtake before the parties could ex- 
change sides. So the g-ame went on, ad infinitum, 
until the boys got tired of the sport. Of course the 
parable does not fit in every detail of the lesson be- 
fore us, but in one respect it fits the preacher, who, 
instead of hitting his congregation with the truth, 
throws so high as to go over and to be caught out by 
the laughing Devil, who keeps up the sport, adinfini- 
tu?n, on the other side. 

The great point to be observed in this illustration 
is the harmless and ineffective work of some of our 
ministry in hitting at, and never hitting the vital 
spot of good or evil in their congregations. They 
shoot over the heads of their people, and shoot in 
such a compromising way as never to hit or hurt 
when needed; and, so to speak, the Devil catches 
them out by catching away the useless sermon flung 
at the folks. Satan, like a flock of birds, catches 

(158) 



ant'ny over. 161 

up the seed sown never so faithfully by the way side, 
at best; but he most jocosely plays "Ant'ny Over" 
with a great many of us preachers when unlike Da- 
vid at the head of Goliath, we feebly or indirectly 
slingf g-ospel stones. The old adversary does not run 
around the house and hit the preacher, like the boys in 
the g-ame, when he catches him out, but he just drops 
the stones or puts them in his pocket; and his great- 
est and most effective aim is to keep the preacher in 
the sport by keeping* up and encouraging" the useless 
g-ame of aimless or cowardly ministry. The Devil 
does not care how much or how hard we throw stones, 
just so we do not hit anything* or anybody. He does 
not care how much we purpose, promise or under- 
take, just so we don't do it; and he is always on 
hand to encourag*e us in shirking* responsibility, and 
in the timid and ineffectual efforts of Christian ac- 
tivity. Hence there is a vast exercise of unrealized 
faith and of unutilized energy and effort in the name 
and under the semblance of Christian activity, which 
is nothing* more than playing "Ant'ny Over" with a 
sporting* Devil. 

There is a great deal of the "I g*o, sir, and went 
not," in our religion. Translated or paraphrased 
into plain lang*uag*e, it is the same as the "I do, sir, 
and I do not. ' ' Many of us are hearers and not doers 
of God's Word; but the worst of it all is that we 
pretend or attempt to do and never accomplish any- 
thing. A half-hearted effort is not only a painful 
and- lifeless pretense at duty, but it is a fruitless work 
even in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; and not 
only so, but we often attempt, even zealously, to talk 
and work for God without plan or discretion, to no 



162 KARP OF hlFE. 

purpose. It takes the wisdom of the serpent and 
the harmlessness of the dove to accomplish the end 
of our ministry for Christ, and withal it involves 
bold, brave, whole-hearted effort to secure results. 
Otherwise the Devil catches out all the stones we 
throw. Not only so, but it requires character com- 
bined with earnest zeal -and wise discretion to throw 
stones straight through God's house and hit the 
Devil between the eyes on the other side. Satan 
doesn't care how many inconsistent Christians, how- 
ever wise or earnest, throw stones. He doesn't even 
have to catch them out. Their arms are paralyzed, 
and all their words and efforts fall short of the mark. 
It is like pitching - straws at the wind for a dancing" 
and theater-going woman to teach a Sunday school 
class, or for a drinking - deacon to talk in a prayer 
meeting-, and it is the same as pouring- water upcn a 
duck's back, or planting- peas upon a sidewalk, to 
preach to a congregation at the hands of a prayerless 
and characterless preacher. 

It is said that at Iconium the Apostles "so spake" 
that a great multitude of both Jews and Gentiles 
believed. "SO SPAKE!" That's it. There is 
everything, we might say, in the presence and power 
of the Holy Spirit to make the preacher effective, 
and yet there is much in the manner and method and 
fire and aim and hitting qualities of the preacher. 
How straight at the hearts of men does D. L. Moody 
or Spurgeon shoot! So direct and clear and hard do 
such men sling stones that they hit where they are 
aimed; and the only work the Devil has to do is to 
get between the sinner and the Word. He has no 
fun in catching out on the other side. The truth is, 



ant'ny over. 163 

he gets hit so terribly himself that sometimes, me- 
thinks, he has to dodge and get out of the way of 
such men as Paul and Barnabas; and the only re- 
course he has left is to get somebody to stone them 
out of the city, the first thing he always attempts 
to do with a man who effectively preaches a whole 
and unmutilated gospel. The Devil isn't afraid of a 
whole brigade of preachers in any city unable to 
preach all the truth of Jesus Christ, and there is no 
man he is so completely cheek by jowl with as a 
preacher who for the sake of his denomination or his 
popularity or his bread and butter, is willing to trim 
the gospel of God's Son. 

A man was holding a yearling once for a cross- 
eyed man to knock in the head. "Do you hit where 
you look?" asked the man who held the yearling. 
"Yes," replied the cross-eyed man. In a moment 
the man who held the yearling let go. There is a 
great deal in looking straight at what you hit and in 
hitting where you look — but not cross-eyed. Too 
many of us are cross-eyed and seem to look in one 
direction and hit in another. Let us look and hit 
straight both. 

How often we see these facts illustrated in the 
contests of our day with great moral issues! What 
splendid resolutions are passed at Associations, Con- 
ventions, Conferences and other gatherings of Chris- 
tians upon the Whisky Question, the Louisiana Lot- 
tery, the Sunday Opening at the World's Fair, Di- 
vorce and other moral problems of the day ! Generally 
an Ant'ny Over business! It is not hard to get these 
resolutions passed in our general gatherings when we 
are from home and when there is nobody in the crowd 



164 HARP OF LIFE. 

to hit; but even there, where the performance is harm- 
less, there are those who timidly shrink from public 
expression and who fear the consequences when the 
minutes are published or the papers are read at 
home. More unfortunately still the enthusiastic 
promoters of resolutions at the Conventions never, or 
seldom dare to say a word when they get back home. 
If they do, it is often to sling- stones on the subject 
over the house to let the Devil catch them out on the 
other side. More than all, the Associational enthu- 
siast will sometimes shoot both ways — one way over 
the church, and another way at the ballot box. He 
has a cannon with two muzzles, and which with the 
same fire shoots in different directions; and the only 
ball which the Devil catches is the one from the ele- 
vated muzzle of the gun which fires over the church 
and drops on the other side. The saloon shot goes 
where the Devil wants it to hit — the other wa} r ! 

Much of our preaching and work for Christ is a 
kind of kid glove or boxing glove performance. The 
Devil never minds the man with kid gloves on, and 
even the boxing glove exercise never badly hits or 
hurts anything or anybody. It sometimes makes a 
fellow's nose bleed or blackens his eye a little, or 
jars his stomach, but it never breaks any ribs or 
knocks the life out of him. The man who wears 
kid gloves in the pulpit or in the work of Jesus 
throws stones just hard enough to be caught out; 
and in fact it is a pretty swiftly flung ball that hell's 
baseball player can't catch out. He is a shrewd 
player, an adept catcher, has a very hard hand and 
is used to the business; and nothing but a rifle ball 
with all the Powder of the Holy Spirit behind it, and 



ANT NY OVER. 165 

shot straight at the mark, will make him dodge or 
keep out of the way. A stone thrown too nicely and 
politely to hurt or to hit, is sure to be caught out. 
'Whenever we cannot call things by the right name, 
or when we preach so generally and lovingly and 
compromisingly as to leave everybody to feel that we 
mean everybody else, or mean nothing at all, we 
may be sure that we are in the boxing glove or kid 
glove business. When the libertine or drunkard, 
the extortioner, the pleasure seeker, or the idler in 
God's Kingdom can feel that the pews in our church 
are soft and comfortable, be sure that you are not 
shooting with a Spencer rifle, loaded to the muzzle 
and forever repeating. 

Of course I know that Christianity is a religion of 
love and gentleness and kindness to all men, especial- 
ly to the unconverted world around us. I am aware 
that ' 'vinegar never catches flies ;" but I am also 
aware that no man can live on molasses, molasses 
theology, molasses morality, nor molasses sentiment- 
ality. I do not believe in dosing the world on sugar 
pills; and if ever we must sugarcoat the pill to get 
a man to swallow, let us be certain that the altera- 
tive of the gospel is in the pill. It is better gener- 
ally to give the medicine as it is; and though bitter 
sometimes to the taste it will be sweet at last to the 
soul. The Hebrews in Egypt ate the Passover lamb 
with bitter herbs. When they got into the wilder- 
ness they longed for the "flesh pots of Egypt" — for 
the "leeks and the onions" — and Aaron gave them a 
golden calf pill in order to sugarcoat God; and how- 
ever sweet to the taste of Israel, it was the bitterest 
pill ever put into the stomach of God's people. 



166 HARP OF LIFE. 

Christ is as sweet as honey to the Christian; but He 
is to be received and eaten as the bread of life with 
the bitter sauce of repentance and affliction for His 
blessed name's sake. The gospel is not all sugar. It 
is mingled with salt, and is the gall of bitterness and 
the fire of damnation to unrighteousness. There is 
a hell to be preached as well as a heaven; and the 
horror of sin as well as the beauty of holiness is to 
be held up before churches and men. He who slings 
the stones of the gospel must hit for good to the 
house of God and to the world that perishes around 
us. He must hit to hurt when necessary and always 
hit to heal. He that spares the rod spoils the child; 
and he that spares the church and the world in which 
he lives of all or anything the gospel would teach is 
playing ' 'Ant'ny Over with the Devil and gets caught 
out every time. 

"Oh, but preach Christ," they say; "and let the 
Sun of Righteousness shine, with the watering of 
the Holy Spirit, and gospel vegetation will grow." 
Yes, but what does this proposition often mean with 
those who suggest it? It means to count noses, 
gather worldly strength, court the popularity and 
fashion of the day, make a flourish of great work 
and enterprise, and at the same time, let the church 
rot and the world die right under your ministr}^ 
Vice and crime are on the increase— open, blatant 
and legalized — around us and in our churches; and 
the poor and the vile masses do not come to our doors. 
We have annually to invite vigorous evangelists to 
come among us who will fling stones and hit right and 
left; and then when they are gone we return, often 
to the kidglove business of playing "Ant'ny Over" 



ant'ny over. 167 

with the Devil, without discipline and without any 
normal or spiritual growth in our churches or de- 
nominations. 

Let us all up and out of it, and quit this picnic 
with his Satanic Majesty. Moral essays, song- ser- 
vices, sensational topics for effect and to draw crowds, 
mean generally to throw stones over the house and 
never to hit for good the congregation which listens 
to us. Let us preach the gospel with power, hold 
up the old doctrines of grace, maintain our tenets, 
sustain our Christian character, purge the churches 
by discipline, corrective and punitive, preach to dying 
sinners, as in the presence of the judgment, and let 
us go before God with a "conscience void of offense," 
and without the blood of any man upon our skirts. 
God forbid, especially, that any of us should go to 
the judgment the mock of the Devil with whom we 
had been playing "Ant'ny Over" all our lives. 




Our Shadows, 



TLJTERE are two men, one walking* towards the sun 
■*-*""• with his shadow behind him; the other walking 
from the sun with his shadow before him. This il- 
lustrates very much the difference between men as 
to the happiness and the miseries of life, or as to the 
bright and glowing aspects of life, or as to the char- 
acter and conduct of life. One man is always look- 
ing- towards the sun — bright-faced, hopeful, cheer- 
ful, and ever bounding- upward and onward to some- 
thing wiser and better in the world, never doubtful, 
fearful, or discouraged; the other is always looking 
from the sun, with the light upon his back and walk- 
ing in his own shadow, with forebodings and des- 
pondency, looking upon the dark side of everything 
and the bad side of everybody — discontented, sour, 
surly, flaw-picking and fault-finding with all that 
shines or smiles. This accounts for the large num- 
ber of pessimists and the small number of optimists 
in the world. 

In the dark there are no shadows. There we are 
all alike and all of the same color. It takes the sun- 
shine to make a shadow; and there is in this world, 
nothing so translucent, except glass, that in the light 
of the sun or the moon, or the stars, will not make 
a shadow. We are all, the best of us, opaque 
bodies; and behind us or before us, as the case may 
be, we all cast a shadow upon the shadowy earth 

(168) 



OUR SHADOWS. 171 

upon which we tread. The higher the sun the 
shorter the shadows, and the lower the sun the longer 
the shadows, whether we follow them or whether 
they follow us. In the buoyancy of youth these 
shadows are longest and behind us, as with hopeful 
hearts and brightest prospects we look towards the 
rising day of life and bound forward to the glorious 
work in front of us; and so are these shadows the 
longest to old age at the close of life and when the 
sun is sinking behind the western hills, and so they 
may be still behind us if our faces have still kept to 
the sun from the dawning to the gloaming of our 
human career. At the zenith of the sun, even under 
the equator, we make our shadows; but if we have 
risen in our hearts and hopes and efforts with the 
ideal luminary our eyes have followed, our shadows 
are shortest, and they are beneath our feet. The 
Zenith of our sun is the point of our greatest suc- 
cesses and triumphs; and the progressive struggles 
which precede, or the declining struggles which fol- 
low, according to the course of age and energy, are 
the shadows which the brave, pure and cheerful soul 
may always keep in its rear. 

The blackest shadow which ever trails our path- 
way, or casts its wierd and hideous specter before 
us, is sin. Murder and adultery, lying and theft, 
covetous idolatry and idle pleasure, slander and se- 
duction, extortion and injustice, the wrecking of for- 
tune and the breaking of peace among men, the vio- 
lation of every law, and under a hundred forms sin, 
like coming events, casts a thousand shadows before 
men and women, with their backs on God and their 
faces toward hell, where all shadows blend in dark- 



172 HARP OF LIFE. 

ness forever. I often think of the dreadful charac- 
ter of Richard III., so luridly depicted by Shakes- 
peare, who beheld in horrid slumbers the ghosts of 
his bloody victims, and who with guilt} 7 fright ex- 
claimed: 

"Shadows to-night 
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard 
Than the substance of ten thousand soldiers." 

Nor less does the poet depict the horrors of that less 
determined but equally guilty monster, Macbeth; 
who, too, in direful dreams awake beheld the gory 
specters of his murdered innocents, and who cried 
out with a despairing agony: 

"Hence, horrible shadow! 
Unreal mockery, hence!" 

Truly did the great poet make that "bottle spider" 
of iniquity say of himself: 

"My conscience hath a thousand tongues, 
And every tong-ue brings a several tale, 
And every tale condemns me for a villain." 

I knew a brilliant and promising young man who, at 
last, went to the bad. He said one day that he some- 
times went off into the woods to meditate upon his 
life, and the constant shadow that stood like an in- 
separable specter before him was the fact that he 
was an "infernal scoundrel." Only a few years ago 
he took his own life in remorse for his vices and 
crimes; and he followed that specter of a ruined ex- 
istence into the eternal land of shadows. 

There are other and different shadows which many 
of us follow through life, and with our backs to the 
Sun of Righteousness. Every man who puts Christ 
behind him, who follows himself, or the world or the 



OUR SHADOWS. 173 

Devil, or who gives up the struggle of life in despair 
and yields to the temptations, afflictions or misfor- 
tunes of life, casts his shadow before him and follows 
after to ruin. Alas! for the victim of doubt or fear! 
There is no hope for the fearful and the unbelieving. 
The sun never yet shone in the face of doubt, never 
yet gilded the countenance of fear. Doubt creates 
every shadow which flings its wizard length before 
the deathless soul. Fear extinguishes every torch 
which God kindles before the eye that would look 
heavenward. Unbelief and cowardice never scored 
a victory, or won an honor, or produced a result. 

"Our doubts are traitors, 
And make us lose the g-ood we oft mig-ht win 
By fearing- to attempt." 

Well did the vacillating Macbeth say of his inextri- 
cable environment by crime: 

"But now, I'm cabin'd cribb'd, confin'd, bound in 
To saucy doubts and fears." 

And he might have said "forever." 

There is a doubt of self, in the fear of God, essen- 
tial to triumph over every foe of life or opposition to 
success; but a doubt of God, or a fear to trust the 
right paralyzes every just conception of truth, every 
effort at duty, and is next to a guilty conscience, 
which "doth make cowards of us all." Next to the 
black shadows of crime are the specters of lost op- 
portunities, of failure and discouragement, of sor- 
row and misfortune, of over-anxious care and melan- 
choly, which many people, with the light of God 
behind them and the shadow of despair before them, 
go down to the cavernous darkness of a lost life. 
All this is next to the shadowy pursuit of the man 



174 HARP OS* L,I2 _. 

brooding* and dying", at last, over a series of "gfuilty 
woes." 

Unfortunately still, there are shadowy tempera- 
ments, gloomy and hysterical dispositions — preju- 
diced, jaundiced, soured, jealous, malicious spirits — 
who never see anything- g"ood in life or in the world. 
They see only the dark side and the bad side. They 
hunt only for spots on the sun, pluck only weeds 
among* the flowers, find only the speckled apples in 
the basket. Such people always go with their heads 
down, their backs to the sun, and keep their shadows 
in front of them. No milk of human kindness min- 
gles in their blood, no love and charity, which always 
look to the sun, and which will shut their eyes rather 
than see it in eclipse. They know nothing* of that 
divine compassion which "thinks no evil," and which 
had rather "believe all things" and "bear all thing's" 
than to be severe even in justice. Mercy never 
spreads her banner over the life, home, or business 
of that man who gropes in the shadow of his own 
selfishness and gloom, created by the distrust of his 
God and his fellow-man. The misanthrope, if not 
the pessimist, sucks nothing but the acid he generates 
in his own bosom, and "like the scorpion g"irt by 
fire," at last sting"s himself to death with the virus 
of his own venom. God pity the man who can see 
nothing- good in the world, and who is ever following" 
the dyspeptic or the noxious shadows of his own 
generation to the grave and then to the Devil. Hades 
seems to be the only fit abode for the man who has no 
other disposition than to make this beautiful world 
a shadow, in which God has permitted His sun to 
shine, His flowers to bloom, His birds to sing", His 



OUR SHADOWS. 175 

springs to sparkle, His dews to fall, His fields to 
grow green and His rainbow to span. Life seldom 
looks better to the man than he looks to himself. 

Let us turn now a moment to the other side of this 
subject. The Psalmist, with all his defects and afflic- 
tions, did not follow his shadows. "Yea," said he, 
"thoug-h I walk throug-h the valley of the shadow of 
death, I will fear no evil." His shadows were all 
flung- behind him. He was ever looking* towards God, 
that Good Shepherd, whose rod and whose staff com- 
forted, strengthened him. David had awful shadows, 
but he kept the sun in his face. Paul forg-ot the shad- 
ows behind him and pressed for the future prize 
ahead of him. He ran with patience the race set be- 
fore him, laid aside every weig*ht and the easily be- 
setting- sin and kept his eye on Jesus, the author and 
finisher of his faith. So he kept the faith, foug-ht 
the g-ood fig-lit, finished his course, shouted his final 
triumph and went down with the sun before him. 
The sunshine and the glory of past achievements, 
even Paul kept behind him, as he kept his eye upon 
the Sun and the Crown of Rig-hteousness. Not only 
joy and happiness, but success depends upon keeping- 
your face towards the sun. 

The memories and experiences of the past, after 
all, are but at best the blended lig-hts and shadows 
which ming-le behind us. They can only make a dim 
lamp which we may swing- before our feet, but they 
will not help us by looking* back. Put them into the 
focalizing* headligfht in front of the eng-ine and they 
help our feet forward in dark places; but we cannot 
afford to look at anything* far ahead of us, except 
the sun. Christ alone is the lig-ht of the world. 



176 HARP OF LIFE. 

He said, "Follow Me." The Star of Jacob, the 
Star of Bethlehem is alone followed by the wise unto 
salvation, and whosoever follows any other light to 
the shores of eternity walks with the Sun of Right- 
eousness behind, and follows the shadow of death 
into the pit of eternal darkness. 

Sometimes I think, in the light of God there will 
be some shadow behind us in heaven. However 
transparent or luminous, we shall to some degree, 
be an opaque body in the world to come. Mr. Cook 
suggests that before the great white throne there 
will be some shadow cast behind us on the sea of 
glass. We can never get rid of our irreversible 
record, although the sin of that record may be for- 
given and blotted out. In the presence of God's 
mercy we can never forget the past; and though 
translucent as glass ourselves, we shall cast the 
faint shadow of recollection behind us. We shall 
ever remember that we were once sinners saved by 
grace, and we shall ever discover that in the light 
of God's holiness and goodness the heavens are un- 
clean. 

The sublimest motives which actuate the Christian 
to fidelity and devotion are love and gratitude to God 
for His mercy; and through endless eternity these 
motives, created and stimulated by saving grace, 
will animate us to ever increasing effort to glorify 
God. The faint shadow of memory ever behind us 
will be there to remind us of the pit from whence 
we were digged and the rock from whence we were 
hewn. The sweetest and holiest thought of eter- 
nity will be that Jesus came into the world to save 
sinners, of whom we are "chief." No sin, or sor- 



OUR SHADOWS. 177 

row, or doubt, or fear, or regret will be in heaven; 
but the memory of former thing's, the little shadow 
of recollection on the sea of glass, will but intensify 
and glorify the lig*ht of God and the Lamb, always 
before us. The great white throne will seem whiter 
and Christ will look brig-hter by the ever-mindful 
shadow behind us, which none shall ever see but our- 
selves — the shadow of only our own memory. God 
help us to keep our shadows all behind us, and we 
shall always be brig-ht, hopeful and happy here and 
hereafter. 




mkm 



i* 



Before and After Marriage. 



i 



N the last twenty years I have married more than 
five hundred couples. They would make a fine 
audience to preach to. The reflection often occurs 
that I have done a great deal of good, or harm, for 
which I am not responsible. If I had not married 
these people, somebody else would. It is my duty 
to marry a couple authorized by the law to enjoy 
the privilege, unless I know of legal or moral ob- 
jections to the contrary; and the responsibility for 
any evil in the premises lies upon the self-slaugh- 
tered victims who offer themselves upon the altar of 
Hymen. 

I have had, therefore, much observation upon the 
subject of marriage both before and after the fact, 
having married all sorts of people, with all kinds of 
results. I rode ten miles into the country on a rainy 
night to marry my first couple; and it cost me the 
hire of a horse and buggy without any compensation 
from the bridegroom. I do not remember but two 
other marriages of the same character of any note — 
one at Memphis and the other at St. Louis. One night 
at the latter place I married a couple at 2 o'clock 
in the morning, and the only pay I received was 
the generous compliment of the bridegroom, who 
said that there was no other man than myself whom 
he would have waked up at that hour of the night to 
marry him! In the former case I spent a day at a 

(1«8) 



BEFORE AND AFTER MARRIAGE. 181 

hotel waiting- for a wealthy country couple whom I 
married in the afternoon; and the only pay I got was 
this: "Much obliged; if I ever have an opportunity 
I will return the favor, ' ' said the bridegroom. ' 'You 
are — welcome,'' said I, inadvertently, and in a 
state of embarrassment I settled my dinner bill at 
the hotel. Somehow I have never forgotten these 
couples since the day I married them. I have mar- 
ried a few colored people, but they always remem- 
bered the fee. Be it understood, however, that it is 
not the money we preachers care for; we simply like 
to feel that we are appreciated. Our wives, per- 
haps, care less for appreciation, on this score, than 
they do for the fee. 

Sometimes a fellow will ask you how much you 
"charge;" and I always tell him "nothing — I leave 
that to the appreciation you have for your intended;" 
and if there is a cent of copper in his pocket or a 
scent of manhood in his soul, he will respond accord- 
ing to his ability. That always gets the better of 
his ignorance or his stinginess — unless it drives him 
to the "Squire," whose small fee does not so heavily 
infringe upon his generosity. Occasionally a fellow 
will persuade a girl to get some other preacher than 
her own pastor to marry them, either from denomi- 
national prejudice or from pecuniary motives. Such 
a man is never a gentleman, and seldom turns out to 
be of any account; and such a woman, usually, is of 
weak and subservient disposition. There is much in 
this phase of marriage by which to judge of human 
nature; and if there is anything which a pastor likes 
above other preliminary indications of character in 
young married couples, it is that courtesy to him 



182 HARP OF LIFE. 

and fidelity to convictions which inspire his admira- 
tion for manhood and womanhood to begin with. A 
young- lady should always have the choice of the min- 
ister who marries her; and, if there are no serious 
objections, she shows great respect to her dignity by 
selecting* her pastor, as well as great respect to his 
dignity and position, which are otherwise compro- 
mised to the extent of her influence and surround- 
ing's. 

In other respects I have married some very peculiar 
couples some of whom have turned out curiously, with 
a big- difference betwixt the before and the after fact. 
I united one couple which had been engaged for 
twenty-five years. Both had grown gray in the 
meantime; and after see-sawing- for a quarter of a 
century they met on the street one day, "fixed it up" 
at last, and came to my study to close their engage- 
ment. On one occasion a tall, heavy-set strawberry 
blonde marched into my study with a twenty-year- 
old boy who looked like a lamb led dumb to the 
slaughter, and I married them. I was hurried one 
night to a house by a man who wanted to marry a 
lady whose name he could not remember until we 
reached the place. The poor fellow quit at the end 
of a month, writing me that his wife drank whiskey 
and persisted in her habit; and that he felt it his 
duty to inform me of his situation. Who blames 
him, except for being the hasty fool he was in the 
premises? 

I have observed that most of the hasty weddings 
I have helped to consummate have turned out badly, 
or indifferently; and only in a few instances have I 
ever seen run-away couples prosper in conjugal life, 



BEFORE AND AFTER MARRIAGE- 183 

except when flying from unreasonable opposition. 
Sometimes the old folks are fools, or in the wrong, 
but not often; and it is generally true that parental 
advice upon this subject is wise and best, especially 
to blind and infatuated girls. It is a dangerous 
venture for children to disregard parental counsel, 
even in the sphere of love, courtship or marriage; 
and the ancient custom of parental contract for the 
marriage of their children was no great violation of 
common sense. It did not turn out so well in Sam- 
son's case, but he forced his father and mother to 
choose for him a Philistine instead of a Hebrew 
against their protest, and that was where the trou- 
ble arose. 

Again, I have observed the dread consequence of 
inter-marriage among kin folks, entailed upon inno- 
cent posterity — such as imbecility, idiocy, blindness, 
monstrosity and other physical and mental distor- 
tions. Never marry your cousin; never marry any- 
body with a drop of your blood in his veins. A 
man once asked me to marry him to his niece. I 
staggered as I said to him I did not want to get my- 
self, nor him, into the penitentiary. He didn't live 
in these parts. Again, let the blonde marry the 
brunette — the opposites of disposition and tempera- 
ment. It doesn't do well for two strawberry blondes 
to get together, and besides, life is too short for two 
such temperaments to come in conflict. Likes 
never beget likes, happily, in marriage. Contrast 
in love is always more agreeable, and runs smoother 
and lasts longer; and more than this, the cross of 
stocks is the theory of greatest and best develop- 
ment in the human as in all other animal families of 



184 HARP OF LIFE. 

the same species. Marry, too, while you are young*, 
but not too young; and let married life be nothing 
but sweetness long- drawn out. I have married a 
few bachelors and old maids. They usually make 
g-ood friends and companions in the partnership of 
life, but the essence of love and the true conjug-al 
spirit are often wanting-. I have also married 
many widows and widowers. The craziest lover 
and sometimes the big-g-est fool is a six-months- 
old widower, if old and wanting' a second wife and 
a girl at that, 'who perhaps is demanding- a larg-e 
dowry or expecting- a g-ood fortune as the price of 
sacrifice on the altar- of matrimony; hoping-, some 
sweet day, the old fool would die and Col. Sam 
Thompson would sit upon the front veranda of her 
dearly boug-ht inheritance. The Lord forg-ive me 
for such official performances on my part. 

I have often observed one thing- before marriage 
which I wish here to note. How devoted and atten- 
tive a young* man is to the g-irl he expects to marry. 
He carries the umbrella over her head; he lug-s the 
shawl and the boxes; he picks up the handkerchief 
or the glove she drops; he tenderly helps her over 
every stone or depression of earth; he rides her in 
buggies; buys immense quantities of ice cream, soda 
water, candy and other delicacies; and he goes with 
her to church — to her own church — whether he be 
heathen or Christian of another denomination. How 
seldom do you see it hold out after the fact! Es- 
pecially, in most instances, how niggardly and mean 
he becomes with reference to her church and her re- 
ligious convictions. One of the vilest and most vil- 
lainous characteristics of a man is to pretend relig- 



BEFORE AND AFTER MARRIAGE. 185 

ion or show denominational respect or preference in 
favor a young- lady and then after marriage treat 
her religion, or her church, with disrespect. Such 
a man plays the hypocrite often to get a wife; but the 
man who pretends to love a woman whose church or 
religion he afterwards disrespects, is no gentleman, 
and is worse than a hypocrite. 

So much for these brief and general observations 
upon the accidents which preliminarily or subse- 
quently characterize marriage. I want to say a word 
about LOVE, that underlying passion or principle, 
essential to courtship and marriage, and upon which 
everything depends for human felicity, unity and de- 
velopment. Milton well said: "Hail wedded love 
mysterious law, true source of human offspring." 

You may technically define, but you cannot com- 
prehend this "mystery." We may talk abstractly 
about the qualities or propensities of this love, 
but all we know of the thing is the concrete fact 
that it is, and that it gets a hold upon people. It is 
an affection of the heart, excited by that which de- 
lights our nature and commands our adoration, but 
no man's head can tell anything about it. It de- 
velops fond attachment and lasting devotion between 
the sexes; it is put sometimes as a synonym for 
friendship; but friendship involves intimate acquaint- 
ance, based upon rational esteem of certain qualities. 
of mind and heart and character which go to make 
up manhood and womanhood in those we claim as 
friends. Congeniality and homogeneity compound 
the qualifications essential to excite and cement 
friendship. Friendship has reason and common 
sense for its basis, but friendship is too tame a word 

13 



186 HARP OF LIFE. 

for the lover's ear. It would run him crazy for his 
"angel" to say that she was only his friend. 

Often the object of love is without character, 
brains, beauty, or any other rational commendation. 
A man is loved who is physically deformed; and a 
woman is adored who is as ugly as sin. Love utter- 
ly violates all the laws of taste and unity in the 
selection of its object of devotion. It seems to be 
founded in mysterious and undefinable affinity, as it 
is in consanguinity, and in a multitude of instances 
its manifestations are about as inexplicable as the 
phenomena of electricity, attraction, caloric, earth- 
quakes and cyclones. It is above metaphysics, and 
often beyond the help of physic. It is as subtle as 
ether, as attractive as loadstone, as explosive as 
lightning, as sweet and gentle as spring and sun- 
shine and flowers, or as furious as the storm and as 
terrible as the ocean. It is genius, good or bad, 
without the guidance of science or philosophy, and 
it is winged with fancy and imagination, timed with 
the music of a thousand-stringed harp and inflamed 
with all the fires of poetry and oratory and rhetoric. 
It nerer dreamed of logic. It is above reason and as 
lofty as God, or it is below reason, as low as hell 
and often insane. When true and pure it is like the 
planet to its orbit; when false or evil, it is but the 
erratic comet, with fiery tail and gaseous intangi- 
bility and soon lost to sight. It is of God and only 
perverted by the Devil — the burning clasp of angel 
devotion or the lurid grasp of demon degradation. 
It belongs of right alone to God and Heaven, where 
it "shall never fail;" but to hell it can never go — 
and it could never live if it could get there. 



BEEORE AND AFTER MARRIAGE. 189 

Now as to the point of advice upon the subject 
of love, or falling- in love, or marriage to begin 
with, it is easy to give counsel, but generally use- 
less. If young people ask your advice, it is oftener 
to get commendation than counsel. They want you 
to tell them to do just what they want to do; and if 
necessary, ridicule is a better weapon than reason to 
divert perverted affection. But though even 

"Satire's my weapon, yet I'm too discreet 
To run amuck, aud tilt at all I meet." 

The counsellor is likely to get into trouble with 
one or both parties advised. Usually, neither will 
listen to you, and will be sure to tell on you; and 
about the only thanks you will get will be enmity in 
the end, if not a broken pate. However, it does not 
hurt in a lecture like this to indulge in the amuse- 
ment of giving a little advice which can do no harm 
if it does no good. I have already given some and 
will proceed to indulge in a word more. 

1. You are going to fall in love in spite of fate; 
and let me tell you, young lady, that a young man in 
love is generally a lunatic who will, sooner or later, 
4 'pop the question." If he is true, he will never 
natter you nor lie to you; and one evidence that he 
is truly in love is that he can never make an intelli- 
gent confession nor ask your hand in any sensible 
manner, no matter how he writes it out or studies it 
up beforehand. Of course you will be utterly as- 
tonished, if you are in love, and will pretend that 
you never dreamed of his so serious affection and at- 
tachment when he stammers out his story. Beware 
of the dramatic liar that attempts to fondle with 
you or falls upon his knees and seemingly pours out 



190 HARP OF LIFE. 

his heart in rhetorical flourishes and poetical periods, 
and then wants to kiss you! He is a snake in the 
grass; and he learned his formula at the theatre or 
memorized it out of some trashy novel. Just keep 
your lover at your finger's end and at your feet. 
He will stay there if he loves you and finds that he 
has anything- to love you for. Never let him be cer- 
tain of victory; for. earnest pursuit in love is much 
better than assured possession. Watch and keep 
your lover closely until the marriage ceremony is 
ended; and if he is frightened then, as the woman 
never is, you may be tolerably certain, as a rule, 
that he is truly in love and will make you a good 
husband, if he is otherwise of any account. 

2. Marriage in itself is a divine institution, a most 
important step in life; and God, above all, should be 
consulted in the premises. All marriage is lottery 
if God is not in it; and we should ask God for our 
partners for life before we ask each other. Then 
love would consult reason and congeniality and nat- 
ural selection; and marriage would be devoid of 
those lustful and selfish motives which so often de- 
stroy life and happiness. Love is not for sale, and 
happiness cannot be bought with money; nor is mar- 
riage merely a civil contract, nor a cold business 
partnership under the firm name of Husband, Wife 
& Co. Neither is marriage a matter of convenience 
in which a man wants a housekeeper or a cook, nor 
in which a woman just wants a protector or a keeper 
— intensified by the desire to escape the reputation 
of being an old maid. Again, marriage should 
never be the result of infatuation over a pretty nose, 
a bewitching eye, or a splendid mustache. Such 



BEFORE AND AFTER MARRIAGE. 191 

marriages based upon "love at sight," often end 
with the honeymoon which wanes in a fortnight. 
Not unf requently marriages are the outcome of mis- 
made matches by some scheming aunt or over anx- 
ious friend or ambitious meddler; but let me insist 
that while advice is good from wise people, God and 
your conscience should be the judge in your solemn 
choice for life. Above all, God forbid those mar- 
riages which are founded in mere passion or lust, in 
which God cannot be considered; and in which a 
man wants a woman instead of a wife, or in which a 
woman wants a man instead of a husband. This 
will do for animals which have no moral guide to 
conscience or nature; and yet there are thousands of 
beastly human beings who thus contract for matri- 
mony which, in such cases, is nothing more than a 
lifelong state of legalized adultery. 

Marriage after the fact is the essential outcome of 
God's divine institution to man. How beautiful, 
happy and useful is married life founded in love and 
congeniality, guided of God and common sense and 
honored and exalted by fidelity and purpose! What 
a glorious spectacle is that old couple who celebrates 
a golden wedding, having traveled together the path 
of life in peace and happiness, sometimes without a 
cross word to each other — whose children have 
grown up around them to usefulness and honor and 
whose examples and influence have illustrated the 
wisdom and beauty of God's noblest institution for 
man's earthly good! I know of no instance of a bad- 
ly grown family where it could be said of father and 
mother: "They never crossed each other's path in 
life." It is often said: "There's a good mother, a 



192 HARP OF LIFE. 

noble fatherland yet their children have gone to the 
bad;" but it will always be found that there was 
some disagreement between the parents in family 
government, some lack of consistency and wisdom, 
some fault somewhere. The old adage is divinely 
true: "Train up a child in the way he should go, 
and when he is old he will not depart from it;" and 
when the maxim fails, it will be found that there 
was a defect in the family training, either upon the 
part of one or both of the family heads. 

There are many different kinds of families, de- 
pending upon the nature and constitution of the 
parents. 

1. There is a family in which the husband is "Old 
Bowser," or in which the wife is Mrs. Caudle. 
Here misery and contention reign, either the hus- 
band dominating the wife or the wife ruling the 
husband, very much to the disgust of children, if 
not to their ruin. No two parents ever trained up a 
child in the way he should go when either ruled the 
other by any sort of domineering* force,, unless, for- 
tunately, the child should have risen superior to its 
surroundings. Equal respect and love for father 
and mother is essential to the proper education of 
our children. 

2. Worse than before, sometimes both parents dis- 
agree and seek to have their own way; and the little 
family is but a domestic hell on earth, with no chance 
for the children except to rise from disgust to a 
higher conception of life and happiness than their 
parents. It is not infrequently the case that a boy 
or a girl, by contrasting their unfortunate surround- 
ings with better circumstances and culture of other 



BEFORE AND AFTER MARRIAGE. 193 

people, catches the inspiration of a noble existence by 
the very force of comparison; and but for this fact 
thousands of our family relations would end in social 
disaster to our country. 

3. There are families, again, in which both hus- 
band and wife are indifferent to each other and to 
their family interests. Both do as they please with 
out protest from either; and the children do likewise, 
each being" a law unto himself. Not much, if any 
better still; for it is from this condition of family 
government that so many of our children grow up 
in disobedience and recklessness all over the country. 
They run upon the streets where they will; they go 
to school, or not; they get into business without 
moral stamina to hold out or be honest; or else they 
drift directly into licentiousness and ruin. 

4. More awful yet is that family where dissipa- 
tion, or other species of immorality reign. The hus- 
band and father is a beastly drunkard or otherwise 
a profane brute, and the mother and children have 
gone to poverty and degradation. Occasionally it is 
the mother that is immoral; and of all the hopeless 
prospects of a family it is that in which the blood of 
the mother is corrupted. One bit of advice can here 
be given which may be taken in every case, without 
the slightest fear of mistake : ' 'Young woman never 
marry a man you have to reform. Young man, never 
marry a woman with a drop of impure ancestral 
blood in her veins from the woman's side of the 
house. 

5. Now and then there are families in which too 
great inequality exists between husband and wife. 
One is educated, the other ignorant; one is naturally 



194 HARP OF LIFE. 

brilliant, the other stupid; one is old, the other young"; 
one is refined and cultivated, the other boorish and 
unmannerly; one is bright and sunny, the other de- 
mure and gloomy. Often the most serious results 
flow from great inequalities of talent, education, dis- 
position, age, or circumstances; and with the facts 
of experience and common sense before their eyes, 
young - people should look well at these thing's before 
they leap into the chasm of an unhappy married 
life 

Finally, let me say that married life should 
be set up and conducted according- to the word of 
God. It is not good for man to be alone, and God 
has given beautiful woman his "helpmeet for him" 
— his complement and his supplement. All other 
things being equal, according to reason and the na- 
ture of things in the choice of each other, the man 
should love, protect, support and make his wife hap- 
py; and the wife should love, obey, and make her 
husband happy. Paul draws this analogy between 
Christ and the church, as husband and wife; and the 
natural or normal relationship between man and 
woman, as set up in the Bible, is the only guide we 
have to matrimonial prosperity and joy. The ten- 
dency to usurp the man's position on the part of 
woman, or the tendency to step down and out on the 
part of man, is one of the marks of modern innova- 
tion in all directions. The "Woman's Right" ques- 
tion is one of the problems and issues of the nine- 
teenth century; but as I shall treat that subject 
under the head of another sketch, I will here close 
what I have to say on this subject. 



The Little Jugs* 



T 



l HE Little Brown Jug - has always existed, but it 
was never so popular as now, having- never 
come into such prominence and notoriety as at the 
present day. I remember always to have seen the 
jug - — always to have heard of it as the synonym of 
whiskey — but prohibition has g-iven a great impulse 
to its popularity and manufacture. The jug* has ex- 
isted from primeval times, and from the rudest forms 
of savag-e pottery it has ascended to the handsomest 
fashions of civilisation. The barbarians g-ave it a 
very big- mouth, according- to the specimens dug- from 
Aztec and other fossiliferous civilizations; but mod- 
ern evolution can claim as much for the jug- from its 
ancestral prototype as for man's descent and ascent 
from the monkey. Anciently the monkey did not 
drink whiskey, but his fully developed and civilized 
posterity does. The nearer we find the race of man 
to the monkey, except when monkeyed with by his 
more civilized antitype, the less he monkeys with 
corn juice, which itself is one of the evolutions of 
modern times. As man has developed, and so of 
whiskey, so has the jug- progressed. It has taken 
on a handle for convenience, and it has a smaller 
mouth which can accommodate a conservative, or 
preservative, stopper. The drying- up of so many 
towns by prohibition brought the little brown jug 
into universal favor, and the potteries of this great 

(197) 



198 HARP OF LIFE. 

country in the last twenty years have been taxed to 
keep up with the foreign and contraband supply of 
John Barleycorn. The little brown jug- has ac- 
tually become an ornamental charm, worn upon the 
chains and other jewelry of gentlemen and ladies, 
such is its popularity. 

Strange to say, and the truth is stranger than 
fiction, the little jug has come to be the symbol of 
capacity, not simply of the whiskey stomach, but of 
the intellect and spirituality of a certain class of 
people. For instance, now when people go to church 
to hear preaching or other public speaking, they are 
measured in capacity according to the time they can 
stay, or the amount of intellectual or religious pabu- 
lum they can take in. If a man gets up and leaves 
prematurely, it is said of him that his little jug is 
full and he is permitted to go. Hitherto it has ever 
been considered disrespectful, asinine, savage for 
any one at church or other public entertainment to 
get up and leave, unless necessarily compelled to do 
so. Not so now. In the evolutionary progress of 
learning and science, it has been settled that when- 
ever a man's intellectual jug is full it is better that 
he should go. Otherwise some jugs might burst or 
else run over, to the hurt of themselves or the dis- 
gust of the audience. Hence, also, the modern de- 
mand for short and juicy sermons, especially some- 
thing that is light, airy and compatible with the 
jugs of frail texture or small caliber. 

Now in going about a drug store, or a queensware 
establishment, or a jug factory, you will discover 
that vials, bottles, jugs and other vessels differ in 
size according to their capacity. They run from 



THE LITTLE JUGS. 199 

ounces to pints, quarts, gallons and so on; and when 
we apply this jug- symbol of capacity or character to 
a man, you will discover how well it fits, often at 
our churches. Take any given congregation and 
you must judge that the vast majority of men and 
women have intellectual and moral jugs of fine ca- 
pacity, because the mass of the audience stays and 
listens to the close of the sermon. To be sure, some 
keep the stopper in, and never get anything in the 
jug. Sometimes the jug leans over and goes to 
sleep, and lets what little gets in pour out. It is 
only the open and emptied and humble jug, that takes 
out the stopper and sits still, that can ever catch the 
sermon and get full. 

Not infrequently a jug — sometimes two jugs to- 
gether — come in full of something else; and the elo- 
quence and thought of a Whitfield could not force 
an entrance into such jugs as these. I have often 
noticed a couple of little chattering jugs laughing 
and talking during the discourse; and while you 
could get neither sense nor sound into their little 
mouths, yet they were big enough to disturb every- 
body about them. Crickets could do that. Occa- 
sionally it is a courting couple — jug male and jug 
female — and they would lean up to each other and 
keep filling each other with molasses while you were 
trying to pour in the water of life; and it is utter- 
ly in vain for the preacher to get anything into such 
jugs. Now and then I have seen a demijohn sitting 
in an audience, already so full of the world's "O be 
joyful" that there was nothing good from God or 
the gospel which could enter. Again the jug is fre- 
quently filled or stopped with pride, avarice, unfor- 



200 HARP OF LIFE. 

giveness, prejudice, curiosity, or other vanity or sin, 
and it is stopper-proof against anything- like evange- 
listic fullness or filling. No use of a jug at church 
unless it is empty of all else and unstopped to the 
gospel. 

The particular point I wish to notice, however, is 
that of the little jugs, large or small, which get 
full and go out. The smaller the jug, of course, 
the sooner it is filled and the sooner it retires. Often, 
the little thing doesn't wait to get anything, but 
just comes in and sits down and gets up and goes 
out, and an angel from heaven could not tell why. 
In fact, there is no reason whatever for this sort of 
a jug performance, and perhaps such a jug is not re- 
sponsible, since it may be all mouth and without the 
capacity for holding anything. One song is suffi- 
cient to fill some jugs, and not infrequently they fill 
up and slip out during the first prayer. The second 
song is as far as most of them can get; and about 
one-fourth of the sermon will run the balance of the 
little jugs out. Now and then you see a three- 
quarter jug wait till near the close of the discourse; 
but it is rare that any jug, except of full capacity, 
can remain that long. Up the little jug pops when 
full, out it goes, and it generally has the physical 
vigor to slam the door behind it and run down 
the steps so as to be heard by everybody in the house. 
One of the funniest and cutest little jugs you ever 
saw is the one that just comes and peeps in at the 
door, puts its small mouth to the ke} r hole and gets 
its breath, (about all it can hold,) and then runs off to 
another church and does the same thing. This jug 
is about the size of the little jug charm which you see 



THE IylTTL,!} JUGS. 201 

men and women sporting* about as a piece of watch- 
chain jewelry. 

I notice, generally, that all the jugs of smallest 
capacity sit upon the rear seats of the church, and 
when they go out the least jug of them all goes first 
and is followed in succession according to the ratio 
of physical progression in sise, as each one gets fill- 
ed. I do not mean, however, that every one who sits 
upon a back pew is a small jug. Some very large 
jugs sit in all places in a congregation; but the little 
ones which get soonest filled and goes out according 
to sise invariably takes a position which, to get out, 
will impose the least burden upon their feeble ener- 
gies and diminutive proportions. These little fel- 
lows know, too, that they can't stand it long, that 
they will soon get full, and they want to be in a po- 
sition to accommodate, as readily as possible, their 
capacity. They don't mind exposure so much, for 
they are too microscopic to be conscious of that. 
I want to return thanks to these little jugs for their 
decency and foresight in sitting where they can get 
out with the least disturbance to those who enjoy 
the service and who are capable of taking it all in. 

One of the funniest things in a congregation is to see 

how the little jugs smile. I suppose it is in the nature 

of a jug to "take a smile;" and many of them begin 

it when they are little. A thing so small and empty 

of anything solid cannot help smiling. I never saw 

an idiot that didn't grin; and it may be said again 

that the little jug is not only the measure of capacity 

and character, but also of sense and propriety. 

They all grin and smile and chatter like katydids in 

August; and there is no amount of logic or eloquence 
u 



202 HARP OF LJFE. 

that can attract their attention or stop their mouths 
until their little measure is satisfied by staying 1 and 
their place becomes vacant by getting- out. The 
only difficulty is when two of them get together and 
they forget to go out. The little jug is a great 
nuisance and annoyance, staying 1 or going; but going 
they are the only blessing* which they can be to a 
congregation of worshipers in the house of God. 
They never come but to annoy; and they never de- 
part but to our joy. 

I used to be often vexed in preaching- by these lit- 
tle jug's. I don't know how often I have attempted 
to rebuke them; but it was always a useless loss of 
temper and waste of time. Once or twice I have 
made a serious mistake when I have seen them smil- 
ing- and chattering, or getting- up and going out; for 
twice in my life I found that I had been scolding 
actual idiots by misfortune; and I felt ashamed that 
I had rebuked helpless nature. The little jug looks 
so much like an idiot, however, that it is impossible 
to distinguish always; but since I have made these 
two mistakes I have tried to be more charitable to 
the little jugs. They can't help their size; and they 
are scarcely responsible for their behavior. Many 
of them never had any training at home; and often 
when good training was attempted upon them the 
jug was too little to receive any great amount of dis- 
cipline, and too mean to appreciate it. It isn't every 
boy or girl, young man or woman, who is possessed 
of genius, wit or common sense; and many of them, 
religiously speaking, never have enough to fill a jug 
of any capacity. A great many people, at church, 
are afflicted with jugs of small religious capacity \ 



TH3 UTTl^ JUGS. 203 

and hence, after all, but few take in a good, old- 
fashioned, gospel sermon. 

To be more serious and gentle, we should be more 
patient and pitiful to the little jugs. When they 
get funny or full let them alone or let them go. 
Kindness will do more to increase their capacity and 
fill them up than all the castigation in the world. 
Ivittle jugs sometimes grow: and by patient forbear- 
ance and culture the young jug sometimes reaches 
great capacity and is hard to fill. A little old jug, 
to be sure, is beyond the hope of great enlargement, 
or fullness, but let us be considerate and kind to- 
wards the young" little jugs that they may grow in 
size, in knowledge and in grace. I have seen several 
aforetime little jugs grow up to considerable capacity; 
but it must be admitted that those who misbehave 
in church, those who come in and get up and go out, 
or peep about the doors and windows, seldom have 
any mental capacity. They are * 'lacking in the 
upper story," almost always. I have seen very bad 
boys and girls, men and women, go to church who 
always behaved and sat still. They had men- 
tal capacity, a just sensibility of respect for their 
situation and they had the will to act accordingly; 
and for such people, no matter" how indifferent or 
bad, there is always an outcome for good. There is 
little hope, however, for the empty-headed little 
jug. 



Sweep Before Your Own Door, 



(QJOME} people are infinitely more particular about 
^ the trash in other people's yards than they are 
about the filth in front of their own door. They go 
around with the broom of censure or criticism to 
sweep out their neighbor's premises, but they seldom 
think of their own. The filth about our kitchen 
never smells so badly — the disorder in our domicile 
never looks so confused as the filth and disorder in 
other people's homes. Burns prayed for "the giftie 
g-ie us, to see oursels as ithers see us," but it is 
equally as good a prayer for the power to see our- 
selves as we see other people. The golden rule 
has the truth of this matter in it; and if we would 
always do as we would be done by, we would always 
attend to our own business and let other people's 
alone. 

Selfishness is exceedingly blind to the faults of all 
that belongs to it. How many mothers can see any 
wrong in their own children, however vile or wicked 
her little darlings may be? but how awfully bad are 
the children who live next door! "Dick Jones will 
be hung," says Mrs. Thompson; "The Davis boys 
are bound for the penitentiary. Sarah Peck is too 
fast and will g*o to the bad if she isn't checked up in 
time. I never saw such ill-behaved children as 
Simpson's in my life; and it is no wonder, when you 
come to think of the bad stock from which they 

(204) 




.orTONnrtM iHHllM^ 



'A' ■('' ill,' !||'l[Mi|iii)|li||j()|) nill!|l!||ifui|' )|i 



SWEEP BEFORE YOUR OWN DOOR, 



SWEEP BEFORE YOUR OWN DOOR. 207 

sprang - ." So it goes on ad infinitum with Mrs. 
Thompson; and such a conversation is the food upon 
which thousands of families are feeding- every day 
about people and their families, while other people 
are talking- about them in the same strain. Every- 
body is sweeping- before every other body's door, and 
yet nobody is looking- at the trash before his own 
door. We forg-et how bad our children are in the 
eyes of other- people; and the microscope which we 
turn upon the sins of others we g-enerally refuse to 
turn upon our own. 

It is just the same in social life and among all 
classes of people. "Oh! how horribly ugly is Jane 
Shore," says Sallie Smart, and yet Sallie may have 
crossed eyes, high cheek bones, a snub nose, a sour 
mouth and thick lips. Mrs. Tabitha Snarlington 
can't see anything neat in Mrs. Sweet's home, noth- 
ing handsome in her carriage or horses, not a speck 
of beauty in her character or demeanor; and yet she 
herself is everywhere despised for her ugly disposi- 
tion and her long tongue, which is loose at both ends 
and pivoted in the middle. What volumes might be 
written of social criticism and scandal among neigh- 
bors, both in low life and high life, peddled around 
every da} 7 in every neighborhood and community on 
earth! I have sometimes heard of peaceful commu- 
nities where people did not talk about each other, 
didn't sweep before each other's door, but I have 
never seen one of them. I have known a few peo- 
ple, men and women, who let other people's charac- 
ter and business alone; but most of the human race, 
in social life especially, so far as my observation has 
gone, sweeps before its neighbor's door instead of its 



208 HARP OF LIFE. 

own. Some women I have observed were so busy, 
thus employed, that you could scarcely get into their 
door for the neglected rubbish which had accumu- 
lated in their scrupulous attention to other people's 
premises. 

The same thing* is rife often in business circles. 
"Alak Sanders is a scoundrel who deals in short 
measures and false weights whether he buys or sells;" 
"Sam Watson is the biggest liar and swindler on 
Market Street;" "John Grimes never keeps a fresh 
stock of goods on hand;" "Carey & Sons are wholly 
unreliable about what they say of their goods;" 
"The credit of Johnson & Bro. is shaky," and so on 
to the end of the business directory. In some way, 
especially in smaller places, business men are sweep- 
ing before every other business man's store door and 
trying to cut his neighbor's throat. Old John Spi- 
derlegs knows all about everybody's business in 
town; and he is constantly neglecting his own in at- 
tending to his neighbor's. Everybody knows and 
despises him, and yet everybody listens to him since 
everybody is willing to hear something bad about 
everybody else. Before his front door there is a cart 
load of trash and filth, tin cans, paper boxes, shav- 
ings, scraps, rags, straw, strings and dirt. The 
mice and rats are running riot through his empty 
barrels and boxes while the pigs and chickens come 
in at his back door. It doesn't pay at all to attend 
to other people's business — to sweep before other 
people's doors — but this old business meddler can 
find time to neglect his own affairs. It is a wonder 
such people never starve. They often live to a bad 
old age; and it does seem as if the Devil had some 



SWEEP BEFORE YOUR OWN DOOR. 209 

very effective way, sometimes, of taking* care of his 
own. 

Alas! even in the church, the brethren and sisters 
sweep before each other's doors and neglect their 
own. "Old Sister Hamilton is entirely too long-- 
faced and sanctimonious!" "Deacon Holder's son 
Tom and daughter Carrie dress too fine; and the 
pastor and his family live too high. ' ' ' 'Poor old Bro. 
Wilkins! if he wouldn't cry every time he g-ot up to 
talk he would have more effect." The sermons are 
too heavy, the prayers are too long", the church is too 
cold, the music is too bad, the members are too stiff, 
something- is always the matter with something- or 
somebody; and you will never see the day when some 
brother or sister is not trying- to sweep the trash 
from before your door until you g-et to heaven. One 
wxrnld think when he g-ot religion the door sweepers 
would let him alone; but it is here your trouble be- 
g-ins. It is then the Devil puts the sweepers after 
you; and the brig-hter your lig-ht may shine in front 
of your own house the easier the flaw picker and the 
mote hunter will find the dust. No, brother, sister, 
you will not be exempt from the broom until you are 
dead; and even then they will sweep for a while 
about your grave. The door sweepers in the church, 
however, are like the sweepers before other men's 
doors everywhere else: they never sweep before their 
own doors. They haven't the disposition to, as is the 
nature of all iniquity; and if they had the inclination, 
they haven't the time. 

Occasionally the preachers take a hand at sweep- 
ing- before each other's doors. It is very common 
among all the professions — law, medicine, politics, 



210 HARP OF LJFE. 

etc. — but it is sometimes, though not often, worse 
among the ministry than any other class of people. 
A jealous, gossipy little preacher is about the mean- 
est thing, in this particular, that struts around the 
world. "Do you know Rev. Dr. Anderson?" "Oh, 
yes, I know him. What about him?" "Well, he is 
a man of fine ability— BUT!" Again: "I met Eld. 
Aikin the other day," says one, "and was greatly 
pleased with his spirit and manner. ' ' ' 'Do you know 
Aikin?" asks Rev. Bro. Stringer. "Yes, I know 
him," replies the speaker; "why do you ask?" 
"NOTHING!" Did you hear Dr. So-and-So's 
speech at the Convention? It was a little spread 
eagle wasn't it?" "Spread buzzard, you'd better 
say, ' ' is the answer. Again : ' 'Will you tell me some- 
thing of Rev. John Fillman of ?" A shrug of 

the shoulders is the silent and significant reply. 
The preacher has such a nice, sweet, pious way of 
cutting a man's throat. He sweeps before your door 
with such a soft looking broom. Nevertheless away 
in the middle of his mop he carries a tack which cuts 
you to the bone. The sarcasm and the gall of a pi- 
ous fling is the keenest cut of all; and I know of 
nothing that can stick deeper and hurt you worse 
than the envious dagger beneath a white cravat, 
which seeks to stab the brother who may be in his 
way. 

The biggest job a man ever had on hand is to at- 
tend to his own business and sweep before his own 
door; and the man who hasn't business enough in 
this line to keep him engaged all the time, occupies 
the most dangerous relationship to the Devil which 
can be imagined. The idle brain and the empty 



SWEEP BEFORE YOUR OWN DOOR. 211 

hand will be sure to find some devilment to do, and 
a part of the occupation will consist in meddling 
with the trash in front of your neighbor's door, to the 
neglect of your own. The difficulty in this respect 
with about three-fourths of the people is that they 
don't work six days in the week nor worship God on 
the seventh. No man who wastes half his time in the 
week and prostitutes his Sundays to idleness or to 
secular employment or pleasure can be a good man 
or keep from meddling with his fellow-man's affairs. 
No wonder there is so much room and range for thea- 
ters, dance-halls, saloons, race tracks, lewd houses, 
jails, penitentiaries, gibbets and lyncher's ropes. 
Sweeping before other people's doors is the pastime 
of idle hands and vicious tongues; and there have 
been more disturbances, conflicts, murders, social and 
family disasters arising from this vice than from all 
other causes in the world. The shotgun and the 
dagger, to say nothing of the walking cane and the 
horsewhip, have oftener been brought into play for 
this reason than for any other; and our statute books 
and courthouse dockets are filled with thousands of 
litigation and strife from this infernal spring of evil. 
Of course I do not mean that in no sense are we to 
sweep before the doors of the wicked, that is to say, 
when there is no trash before our own. We have a 
right to insist upon our neighbors keeping clean 
premises when we do likewise. The good health and 
general welfare of every community demand swept 
yards and hygiene regulations, and every man who 
orders his house well and sweeps his own yard has a 
right to complain of those who neglect the public 
weal in these particulars. What is true physically 



212 HARP OF LJFE. 

is true morally. As preachers and exemplars of the 
gospel, of law and order, of peace and happiness 
among- men, we have a right, in general, to cry aloud 
and spare not against the sins of our fellows; but 
we must be sure that we are clean before we attempt 
to cleanse others. Besides this, we must sweep thus 
before the door of others for others' good and for the 
common benefit of all, without the spirit and manner 
of intermeddlers and busy bodies in other men's mat- 
ters. As good citizens, as Christian philanthropists, 
it is our dutv and right to vindicate the law and the 
gospel in the effort to save and elevate our fellow- 
man; and when we sweep before the door of the 
world it is not to be done with a broom of wire, filed 
at the ends and red hot with the vicious and mali- 
cious delight of torturing others with the sins of 
which we ourselves may or may not be guilty. 
Christianity is a great sweeper, but it sweeps with a 
clean, soft broom; and if you will let Jesus do the 
sweeping, your house will be clean indeed. Blessed 
is he who sweeps with the broom of the gospel; and 
blessed is he whose heart is swept by it. It is 
sprinkled with the precious blood of the Redeemer, 
which alone cleanseth us from all sin; and it is the 
only broom which cleanses with a cleansing which 
needeth never to be cleansed again. He that sweepeth 
let him sweep in love; and let him be sure that he 
hath swept himself. 



The World, the Flesh and the Devil. 



I 



N the illustration before you, behold a church 
member of a certain, rather of an uncertain 
character. He drags his cross after him over the 
stones and in the mud, which is much harder to him 
than to carry it like a man, upon his shoulder. 
More than this, upon the back of his flesh he loads 
the world, with the Devil upon top of that; and, with 
his insufferable burden, he is making- his way to the 
"BAR," whither he often goes, as to other places 
of sin and of doubtful propriety. He has a woe-be- 
gone look and a heavy countenance, which indicates 
his conflict with a conscience that is forever seesaw- 
ing between the right to "run with the hounds and to 
hold with the hare. ' ' This poor fellow is nearly worn 
out with the double duty of trying to serve two 
masters. 

What a difference between this man and the other 
in the picture, whom you see yonder in the distance, 
with his cross upon his shoulder, upright and 
straight as an arrow, and on the way to his church! 
How easily and comfortably he bears the yoke of his 
Master and pursues the more even tenor of the 
Christian's way! He, too, has his trials and his 
temptations, but he is on the King's highway and 
off the Devil's track, with no fear of evil and with 
grace to bear the ills and burdens of life, let them 
come when they may. There's a big difference be- 

(215) 



216 HARP OF LIFE. 

tween these two men even in having* a hard time, to 
say nothing- of the good time which the one really 
has and the other never has. The worldly-minded 
Christian is never prepared for his afflictions and 
temptations, just as he is never able to appreciate 
the blessings of life; and hence he howls and writhes 
under every chastisement intended for his correction, 
as a badly spoilt child. The faithful Christian can 
welcome the heavy hand of his Father as well as His 
tenderest mercies; and his suffering's inure to the 
chastening* of his soul as well as to his richest re- 
wards. He alone can understand that to suffer for 
Christ means to reign with Him; and that the fire- 
proof of the cross is the touchstone of religion. He 
W T ho never suffered with Christ, and who cannot en- 
dure the honor, had better examine himself as to 
whether or not he be in the faith. 

This man with the world on his back and the 
Devil on top — dragging his cross in the mud and out 
of the way — is a fair specimen of thousands who 
have a name to live and are dead — who live in pleas- 
ure and are dead while they live. They are laden 
with the love and cares of riches — choked up with 
the anxieties and concerns of the flesh — tempted and 
lured away by the Devil from Christ and His cause — 
ever fascinated by the lusting of pleasure, passion 
and appetite. Such a professor of religion finds it 
an insufferable burden to bear the cross and, at the 
same time, tote the world and the Devil besides. He 
may wish to be a better Christian, and sometimes 
try to be, but all his efforts at duty are vain, and all 
his aspirations for heaven and happiness evaporate 
as the dew under the morning- sun. You cannot 



THE WORLD, THE FEESH A^JD THE DEVIE. 217 

make religion and worldliness mix, much less relig- 
ion and devilment, so as to make a happy and a pro- 
fitable compound; and the most miserable wretch 
upon earth, with any degree of conscience left, is he 
who is honestly trying to serve two masters. 

The mistake of millions is that false profession of 
religion which only desires to escape hell and get to 
heaven. Many professors are like Falstaff at the 
battle of Shrewsbury, whose only prayer was this: 
* 'God keep lead out of me." He pretended to have 
killed Percy, who was slain by King Henry; and 
who, when Douglass fought with him, fell down, as 
if dead, to keep from being killed. He did not have 
the honor or the love of his country at heart, and 
hence he had neither ambition nor courage. So it is 
with thousands of Church members. The love and 
service of God are not their motive. The cause of 
Christ is not their object. They endure no toils, 
shed no tears, make no sacrifices, fight no battles, 
suffer no persecutions for Jesus; and their very life 
is spent in shirking duty and avoiding danger. 
They neither give nor live, go nor do for Christ, ex- 
cept from a sheer sense of duty, or under the scourge 
of public opinion, if ever; and almost every service 
rendered is a matter of grudging regret and compul- 
sion. Often they refuse to make any offering, or 
contribute any service, whatever; and yet they ex- 
pect to escape hell and get to heaven. 

Many professors never get away from the banks 
of the river Jordan, or the fount where they solemn- 
ly put on Christ in baptism — the biggest lie ever 
perpetrated, if done in a false profession. They are 

like turtles lying on the banks of the stream — if you 

is 



218 HARP OF LIFE. 

touch them they will take to the water. Christ 
sa} r s: "Follow me," but there they lie; and the only 
song* which they can ever sing- is — 

"On Jordan's stormy banks I stand." 

They belong- to the church firm of Jesus Christ & 
Co., but they are silent partners, bearing- no bur- 
dens and sharing- no expense, } r et expecting- to partici- 
pate in the eternal profits of the business. An- 
nounce a collection for Foreig-n Missions and they 
take the "colic" on that da}-; on Home Mission day 
they have the "griffc" on Sunday school day they 
have the "chills'" and on education day they are 
"tired" Seldom on hand when money is to be 
given, or work to be done, though they often shout 
during- the revival after fodder-pulling- time; and 
even when present, they can listen to an appeal for 
the perishing- heathen, or the struggling- missionary, 
with a heartless indifference and a cool effrontery 
which would put a crocodile to blush. The great 
commission: "Go ye into all the world and preach 
the g-ospel to every creature," is as essentially a dead 
letter to them as a Sunday or a liquor law upon the 
statute books of Tennessee. 

"With such professions of religion, it is no wonder 
that so many Church members are carding* the world 
on their back, toting- the Devil besides, and drag-ging- 
their cross in the mud; and it is no wonder that so 
many seek to stand from under the burdens of true 
religion. They can't canw both long at a time, 
however hard at first the}- may tr}\ Nothing- but 
LOVE, love to God, love to truth, love to man, can 
keep the Christian out of the world, or cure the flesh 
or vanquish the Devil; and such love, with its 



THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIE. 219 

corresponding zeal and effort, is the only abiding 
evidence of the Christian religion. Without this 
evidence, internal and external, religion is really a 
false profession. Yon need not expect to keep out 
of the saloon and the theatre, you need not hope to 
surpress the love for money and pleasure, you need 
not dream of crushing your passion and appetite, lust 
for the world and selfish indifference to God, if the 
love of Christ and his cause does not dominate your 
life and activities. There may be some sort of faith, 
some kind of hope, underlying your profession; but a 
faith that does not work by love to God and man is 
dead and fruitless and helpless, and without that 
hope which never maketh ashamed. 

The best Christian, of course, needs education and 
culture in religion to keep down the world, the flesh 
and the Devil — these three enemies of the soul, al- 
ways hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder and cheek 
~by jowl with each other for the Christian's destruc- 
tion. These three agree in one — -the great, dread 
trinity of evil — and the Christian needs to be forti- 
fied against them in the triune development of 
Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the heart and life of 
liis great profession. Even when we do the best we 
can, we are full of imperfections and infirmaties; but 
God always supplements the failures and forgives 
the sins of the faithful. We can keep the world off 
our back; but it is impossible to keep the dust and 
dirt of the world off our clothes and our faces. 
Nevertheless, as in nature so in grace, we can go 
wash every day in that Fountain filled with blood 
and be clean. It is impossible to eradicate the dis- 
eases and the defects of sin from the flesh; but, as 



220 . HARP OF L,IFK. 

in nature so imgrace, we have a Physician who is al- 
ways in attendance upon our ills. We cannot 
escape the temptations of the Devil, nor the afflic- 
tions and misfortunes of life, but ever present with 
us is One who conquered for us Death, Hell and the 
Grave. Sanctification is simply progress, every-day 
growth in grace and knowledge; but no Christian 
can develop with the world upon the back of his 
flesh, the Devil on top and the cross dragging behind 
him. Such a load upon a Christian's back will be 
certain to make a runt and a dwarf of him, and 
certain to crush all usefulness and joy out of his life. 
God's child has enough to do, a sufficient burden 
to bear, with his cross upon his shoulder and his 
feet in the strait and narrow path. He cannot bear 
two different and opposite burdens at the same time. 
It is useless to attempt to carry the water of life 
upon one shoulder and the Devil's jug on the other. 
Thousands who thus live out a miserable existence 
are hoping for the deathbed to repent, and for the 
clouds to disappear — looking for God's mercy at last 
upon a wasted life — having insulted divine clemency 
a thousand times by promises to "do better." Even 
when rescued from what seemed a bed of death, 
pleading to be spared for a "better life," they have 
returned like the sow to her wallowing in the mire, 
and like the dog to his vomit. They shouldered the 
world again and again, invited the Devil into the sad- 
dle and dragged the cross in the mud as ever before; 
and so they died at last either in doubt and darkness 
or cherishing the delusion that all will be well that 
ends well by the grace of God hoped for in the dying 
hour. 



THE WORLD, THE FEESH AND THE DEVIE. 221 

We are all here to bear the burden of responsibil- 
ity. A burdenless man is a worthless man. Most 
men bear a burden of some sort; and if a man doesn't 
shoulder the cross of religion, he will take the world 
upon his back, whether in the Church or out of it. 
Idleness in God's Kingdom sooner or later means ac- 
tivity in the Devil's. But few people are too lazy 
to serve the Devil actively; and laziness in itself is a 
negative service of the Devil, if nothing more. * ' Woe 
unto them that are at ease in Zion." Ease and in- 
difference soon work stagnation and death; and re- 
formation and cure culminate only in the cyclone and 
blizzard of revolution out of the worst forms of 
declension and violence. Be sure that the idle or the 
lazy man in the Church will sooner or later give the 
Devil a chance to ride. He may be too lazy or stingy 
to serve God, but he will give the Devil the best he 
has, and do for the world and the flesh the best he 
can. It makes the heart sick to see how much men 
will do and give for themselves, for society, politics, 
business, pleasure, pride, ambition, appetite and 
passion, and so little for God and His cause, even in 
the Churches of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

I look, sometimes, over the waste places of our 
country. Out of millions of Christians behold the 
pittance given and the little done for Christ! Home, 
Foreign and State Missions, education and benevo- 
lence, even the support of our churches, get but a 
drop in the bucket by the side of the luxury bill; and 
our zeal for pleasure, politics and worldly profit, the 
stupendous energies put forth for worldliness and 
wickedness, cast into the shade the work of religion, 
even on the part of the multitude of professed Chris- 



222 HARP OF IvlFE. 

tians. What could 20,000,000 Christians in the land 
do for God and civilization if they would! It looks, 
sometimes, as if the Churches had shouldered the 
world and set the Devil on top, when we behold the 
reign of vice, licentiousness and extravagance in 
high places, the desecration of the Sabbath, and the 
domination of the saloon in politics, government and 
religion, undisciplined in the Church, uncontrolled in 
society and incapable of punishment at the hands of 
the law. Mob law and violence reign supreme in 
the land; and the best evidence of virtue among the 
people consists in the occasional outburst of that 
popular indignation which rises to vindicate justice 
at its own hand, the most unfortunate and demoraliz- 
ing of all necessary evils. Let us pray God for the 
unloading of the world from off the back of our 
Christian country, for the pulling down of the Devil's 
strongholds, and for the sanctification of our soul, 
mind and body. 




TAFFY. 



Taffy. 

^TpAFFY is a kind of molasses candy boiled down 
■^ and poured out into a shallow pan to cool and 
harden. By amoral application of the subject, taffy 
is nothing more than a little sweet flattery poured 
out, when boiled down to its last analysis, into the 
shallow pate of those who are fond of this kind of 
sugar. There is not much in the molasses candy 
alone for a living. You cannot subsist upon it, how- 
ever good it is to those who like it, and naturally 
you soon get tired of it by constant use. Not so mor- 
ally or psychologically speaking. In this sense the 
taffy lover never gets tired. As in the use of opium 
or whiskey, you have to increase the dose in order 
to keep him alive, and about the time he gets well 
used to it he dies — dies as he had lived — never 
satisfied. 

To be honest about it, we all love a little taffy — 
a little molasses candy — sweetness long drawn out. 
It would be hard to find a human being who did not 
like a little sugar, and most people take it in larger 
doses. This is the reason why taffy is manufactured 
in such large quantities and sold, wholesale and re- 
tail, according to the law of supply and demand. 
Nobody has ever seen the market glutted with taffy. 
There is never such a thing as over-production, and 
you do not have to pass any high tariff law to protect 
it. It is not an infant industry, nor has it any for- 

(235) 



226 HARP OF LIFE. 

eign competition, nor is it subject to monopoly, com- 
bine or corner. Everybody makes it and buys it, 
sells it or gives it away. Sometimes it is as cheap as 
dirt and again it is as costly as gold. No sort of 
regulation in prices governs its manufacture or sale. 
Frequently, in spite of the supply on hand, it is hard 
to find; that is to say, when a fellow is hankering 
after it and everybody knows it. There are some 
people who never sell it or give it away, but who al- 
ways take it, and, if need be, will pay for it. It is 
remarkably true that there are always more people 
to take it than to give it, and yet there is never any 
lack of supply to the demand for it. 

There are some people whose motto is that of Pat- 
rick Henry, a little altered: "Give me taffy or give 
me death." It looks as if they would die if they 
didn't get it. They seem to live upon it; and lean 
and hungry as such a living is, they cannot get along 
without it. You can never get a favor out of them, 
you can never stimulate them to do anything, you 
cannot keep them in a happy mood or above the 
clouds of despondency without the constant dose of 
taffy applied with a pat on the back, a hug around 
the neck or a kiss on the cheek. Just a little taffy 
and you can get anything they have, or get them to 
do anything you want, or go anywhere you desire. 
It is a most effective stimulus to children, to the 
laborer and the student, to the cook and the chamber 
maid, and to wives; and there are some husbands 
who must have sugar all the time in order to keep 
them in a good humor, give them courage and cheer 
in their business, or get their pocket-book open 
when the madam or misses of the family want to go 



TAFFY. 227 

a-shopping. Even the preacher likes it, and the 
Devil always gives it to him when he imagines he 
has preached a good sermon; and then if the brethren 
do not give him a little taffy at the church door he 
will go home and worm it out of his wife, who, by 
the way, is often obliged to give taffy when she hasn't 
any on hand. 

A little taffy — I mean a little harmless coating of 
sugar or the giving of sugar plums when needed — 
doesn't hurt the church members, occasionally and 
judiciously administered. It is better than horse- 
whipping and vinegar mixed, and the brethren like 
it a great deal better. Even the sinner is caught by 
it sometimes; and I have thought perhaps Paul used 
it, by his saying that he caught them "by guile." 
He was in little things, things indifferent and which 
involved no principles, "all things to all men," and I 
have no doubt, in a sweetened sort of way, he often 
got upon the blind side of prejudice and meanness in 
order to catch the Jew and the Greek alike. Acid 
never catches flies, but sugar does. There is only 
one man in the world I know that is proof against 
taffy, as a rule, and that is the man who loves money; 
and even here you may sometimes touch the miser's 
heart and get him to give to charity or religion. Ordi- 
narily, however, Shylock, in Spite of Portia's elo- 
quence and logic, will have his "pound of flesh," and 
hell itself is not much harder against every touch 
of pity or taste of taffy than the soul locked up in 
the triple steel of avarice and covetousness. There 
are church members in all our churches you cannot 
even sugar a dollar out of; and they listen to the 
wants of the poor, the needs of the Church and the 



228 HARP OF IvlFl}. 

cry of the heathen with a cold-blooded complacency 
that seldom yields a dollar to God's holiest appeal 
to the human heart. 

Now, taffy is a species of flattery, but it is of the 
most harmless of its kind. It is not meant by taffy 
that you indulge so deeply or seriously in the sin and 
the insult of deceptive and insincere adulation for sel- 
fish or evil purposes. In this form and for this end 
taffy is of the Devil; and it was by this art that Eve 
was deceived in the garden of Eden, Samson lost 
his seven locks of strength, David was led astray by 
Seba, Solomon fell under the artful seduction of too 
many wives, and Absalom misled Israel into rebel- 
lion and himself into ruin. The great poet well 
said: 

"Flattery is the bellows which blows up sin." 

It is the great viper which, in the form of a friend, 
princes have taken into their bosom, the serpent that 
stings while it smiles; and the great, the learned and 
the good of all ages and countries have been subject 
to its delusive and blighting touch. Well did Swift 
say: 

" 'Tis an old maxim of the schools 
That flattery's the food of fools; 
Yet now and then your men of wit 
Will condescend to take a bit." 

Love alone never flatters. Love is truth in its high- 
est and purest form. God is love; and even in the 
human form of Christ he never flattered, however 
justly he complimented and encouraged men with 
the due meed of praise and honor; and the best rem- 
edy against the evil I can commend is the example of 



TAFFY. 229 

Him who never yielded to the Devil's flattery in the 
hour of temptation, and who never taffied men for 
any purpose or end. 

One of the greatest damages to which we are sub- 
ject is the flattery of self; and a writer has aptly 
said: "If we would not flatter ourselves the flattery 
of others could not harm us." Thus in the vain and 
deceitful beauty, flattery a thousand times has been 
the death of virtue; and so to lofty pride and vault- 
ing ambition in men it has been the bane of fortune, 
the poison of fame, and the assassin concealed under 
the easy bed of high position. It is the counterfeit 
coin which makes the fool poor who takes it; and it 
is the dropsical food which, while it seems to feed 
and fatten, has starved its millions with the emacia- 
tion of inward hunger. We are not only flattered 
by ourselves and by those who are the shadows 
which follow our folly, but we are flattered by our 
contrasted surroundings and relations. The infe- 
riority of others, the splendor of reputation, the crown 
of fortune, the obsequious demeanor of the world 
about us, the fascination of general applause, all 
this and more has turned the head and corrupted the 
heart of the unheroic spirit who was otherwise great 
and good, and who might otherwise have been crown- 
ed with the wreath of the victor in the contests of 
life but for the blight of flattery. Thus failed and 
died such men as Alexander and Caesar and Napo- 
leon and Nero and Belshazzar and a host of great 
names surfeited and undone by the glory of their cir- 
cumstances. 

But taffy comes under the head of comedy, not 
tragedy. Taffy does not walk upon the stage in the 



230 HARP OF LIFE. 

buskins and pompous grandiloquence of that artful 
play which is the source of wicked deeds and the 
curse of good ones. Taffy, after all, is what we 
said it was — molasses candy, sweetness long- draw 
out, in good humor and for better purposes applied 
upon a smaller scale for fun, or for the accomplish- 
ment of some good end to those who cannot be other- 
wise affected. If occasionally it can gently wring a 
deed of charity or a contribution to necessity from 
the clinched hand of avarice or inhumanity; or if it 
can encourage the doubtful and melancholy soul to 
greater energy and brighter hopes; or if it can get 
upon the blind side of prejudice or ignorance in the 
inculcation of truth; or if it may catch a poor soul 
for good by tact, or "guile," as Paul put it; if in 
any way it can soothe by praise, catch by soft words 
or innocently cajole without verging into deception 
or insincerity in order to accomplish a good end, 
then taffy may not be an evil. There is no way to 
reach some people on earth except by a little taffy, 
and that too very adroitly applied. Argument, per- 
suasion, force, tears, sighs, thunder, lightning, 
nothing would reach the pocket-book or get into the 
graces or secure the co-operation or procure the re- 
formation to overcome the enmity of some people un- 
less it was taffy — a little sugar-molasses candy. 
Nothing goes so far with some people. 

How many illustrations do we see of this fact. 
"Ole Miss, you's better lookin' now dan enny ob 
your gals," says the old cook, who can get all she 
wants now out of "Ole Miss;" and if she told the 
truth for a good purpose the taffy doesn't hurt "Ole 
Miss" nor "Old Sally." "Boss, dat wus de fines' 



TAFFY. 231 

speech, dey all say, you ebber made in dat court 
house," said old Jack, the hostler of the village 
hotel, to one of the lawyers who had come to court; 
and if old Jack got a quarter by the operation, and 
told the truth to get it, it was worth the compli- 
ment he paid to Col. Simpson, who understood, per- 
haps, what old Jack wanted. Mr. Samson whipped 
his son John a hundred times to make him learn, 
with no result; and one day he changed his tactics 
by praising John, and the boy went right up to the 
head of his class. Everybody in the church called 
old Tim Wilson a miser, and he didn't care the snap 
of his finger for it; but the pastor, who wanted to 
raise $6,000, went to him one day and said: * 'Broth- 
er Wilson, I love you, I pray for you, we need a man 
like you. I want you to give us a good subscrip- 
tion," and he planked down $500 to repair the 
church, while the pastor was patting him on the 
shoulder. 

But I must conclude. Let none misunderstand 
me in the treatment of this delicate and difficult sub- 
ject. Let us despise flattery in its accepted sense 
for any purpose, whether as a bad means to a good 
end or a good means to a bad end; and if I have prop- 
erly construed taffy as a species of flattery in a 
secondary and a better sense, and as the harmless 
application of sugar to a sincere purpose, then use 
it as indicated. Take the dose as I give it; and if 
you think otherwise than I do, then abstain from 
even the appearance of evil. Ambition, pride, jeal- 
ousy and the like in their primary and bad sense 
have reached secondary applications, which are re- 
garded as harmless and right; and so I consider taffy 



232 



HARP OF LIFE. 



as the secondary and better sense of flattery. Only 
give taffy as needed for a good and wise purpose, 
and be sure not to verge into the sin and the evils of 
flattery. 






i 



The Moss-back* 



^TpHE illustration which is suggested by this sketch 
-"* is the old story of the man on the way to mill with 
corn in one end of his sack and a stone in the other. 
On being asked his reason for this sort of method in 
mill procedure, he replied: "This is the way my 
daddy went to mill, and this is the way I go to mill." 
Of course to such a reply from such a man there was 
no answer. He was a crystallized, confirmed moss- 
back, and there was no chance for alteration. As 
the twig was bent, so the tree was inclined. Yea, 
as the tree had fallen, so the log was lay : ng. 

There are three general characteristics of mind 
and temperament among men: The conservative, the 
radical and the liberal — and these psychologic phases 
of human nature are discoverable in every form of 
society, however affected by education or association. 
In their reverse order let me, by way of introduction, 
analyze these three distinctions among men, in order 
more fully to develop, in clearer light, the old moss- 
back that stands prominently among the three as the 
extreme outcome of conservatism. 

1. Liberalism means independence of orthodox or 
established tenets in political or religious philosophy. 
The liberalist is a freeman in opinion and conduct, as 
he is broad in his construction of truths, principles, 
laws, institutions and customs. Liberalism runs 
into libertinism, or licentiousness, when it become? 

(235) 



236 HARP OF IvlFE. 

extreme. The liberalist becomes a libertine when 
he becomes free from restraint, as heretofore he has 
assumed to be free to believe as he pleased. He is 
the very antipodes of the moss-back; and, of the 
two, we had better have the moss-back than the lib- 
ertine. The Jews became liberalists and then liber- 
tines when they demanded of the prophets to preach 
unto them "smooth things. " Aaron ran into liber- 
tinism, the extreme of liberalism, when without any 
abandonment of his theology he changed the form of 
it by putting the Golden Calf in the place of God, and 
had the people to shout and dance before it in the 
wilderness. So Jeroboam set up as a matter of 
policy the Bull of Osiris under a liberal construction 
of Jewish theology; and his licentious liberalism 
plunged Israel into endless corruption and idolatry 
and finally into ruin. So run Universalism, Unita- 
rianism, Spiritualism, Theosophy, Christian Science, 
Mormonism, Swedenborgianism, Shakerism and all 
other isms which attempt to liberalize by adding to 
or taking from God's word. The next step always is 
to Ingersol and Voltaire. The rather give us moss- 
backism a thousand times. Let us carry the stone 
in one end and corn in the other end of the sack. 
The stone does no good, but it does not hurt, so we 
have the true corn of the gospel. 

2. Radicalism means revolution or change, heroic 
treatment, in politics and religion, in all forms of 
reformation, irrespective of existing laws, institu- 
tions or customs; and when radicalism becomes ex- 
treme then it turns to fanaticism. In other words, 
when the radical carries revolution, or change, into 
principle as well as method or practice, he becomes 



THE} MOSS-BACK. 237 

a fanatic. He supposes that truth changes, for his 
purpose, as well as custom; and hence fanaticism, 
like libertinism, often becomes the curse of society, 
politics and religion. It makes the crank or the per- 
secutor. Radicalism in methods and measures often 
becomes necessary to reformation in society and to 
aggressive development in the progress of every true 
principle; but when it assumes to change or bend 
principles for the accomplishment of its purposes, 
good or bad, then it reaches the climax of fanaticism. 
Mobocracy, the lyncher's rope, is a fine illustration of 
radicalism gone to seed in fanaticism — taking the 
law in our own hands; and it was in this same spirit 
that James and John, the sons of thunder, wanted 
to call down fire from heaven to consume the Samari- 
tans for not receiving Christ. Saul of Tarsus was 
a radical and a fanatic when he was making "havoc" 
of the Churches of Christ — doing what he thought 
to be "God's service," but guided by a "zeal without 
knowledge," and so of all religious bigotry, zealotry 
and crankism of this and every other period of his- 
tory. Better have moss-backism than fanaticism, 
however pure and sincere, in religion or politics. 

3. Conservatism means opposition to change, or 
innovation, in existing customs or institutions as well 
as principles. To preserve that which exists with- 
out change, is the tendency of the conservative; 
but when conservatism becomes extreme, then it as- 
sumes the shape of moss-backism. Whenever a man 
reaches the conception that the way you do a thing 
is as essential or important as the reason for doing 
it — or when he is as conservative in his methods as in 
his principles — then he becomes a moss-back. "My 



238 HARP OF UFE. 

daddy did this way, and so I do this way;" and when 
the method of going- to mill becomes as important 
with a man as the going- to mill itself, then he is a 
settled, confirmed, crystallized moss-back. Corn in 
one end of the sack and a stone in the other in order 
to g-o to mill at all! It is this principle which makes 
the conservative non-progressive socially ,relig-iously, 
politically and in every other way. 

Now there is an element of g-ood in each of the 
three g-eneral characteristics which classify the hu- 
man race into conservatives, radicals and liberals ; 
and we find a combination of these characteristics or 
tendencies in Christianity and its g-ospel as nowhere 
else so much in the world. The Spirit of Christ is 
liberal and sympathetic; His methods are radical; 
His truths and principles, His institutions and fixed 
practices, as revealed in the g-ospel, are conservative 
and unchangeable. There can be no change in moral 
principles, spiritual precepts and doctrines, in Church 
constitution and offices, in the ordinances, in discip- 
line, in the faith and practice of the New Testament; 
but in the spirit of Christianity we must be liberal 
and loving-, and in the methods of Christian work we 
must be radical. The moss-back is not only ex- 
tremely conservative in the fixed principles and insti- 
tutions of the g-ospel, but he is equally conservative 
in his spirit and methods. He can love only his little 
sect or party, and he can do nothing- in method with- 
out a "thus saith the Lord" for everything-. He for- 
gets that while Christ taught us to pray, and work, 
go and give, preach and practice the gospel to the 
uttermost part of the earth, He never prescribed any 
fixed methods for the purpose. In matters of edu- 



THE MOSS-BACK. 239 

cation, benevolence and missions especially, He left 
His Churches and His people to their sanctified judg- 
ment, under the guidance of His Spirit and limited 
by fixed principles and institutions, to follow the 
best methods which circumstances and conditions 
through the ages might suggest. Hence our Sunday 
schools, Christian colleges, religious newspapers, 
orphanages and asylums, conventions, boards, so- 
cieties, literature and other instrumentalities, not 
mentioned in the Bible, for the spread of the gospel 
at the hands of the Churches. 

In the New Testament we find no semblance of 
moss-backism as to spirit or method, notwithstand- 
ing the inflexibility with which it asserts its princi- 
ples and doctrines and the rigidity with which it 
holds to the form of its institutions, ordinances and 
fixed practices. John played the moss-back once, 
when he forbade one casting out devils and, in the 
spirit of intolerance, and because he did not go with 
the Disciples, tried to stop the good work; but Christ, 
our Lord and Master, rebuked his spirit and pro- 
tested against his injunction. Any spirit or method 
which would cast out devils was acceptable to 
Christ; for He declares that all who were not against 
Him were for Him, no matter what the method of 
their work might be. Paul was never a moss-back. 
He was profoundly conservative in the fixed princi- 
ples and practices of the gospel; he was broadly 
generous and sympathetic in his love of all men; but 
he was radical in his methods of work in the salva- 
tion of a lost world. He went so far as to catch 
men by "guile." In matters of indifference, and 
where no fixed principle or practice was violated, he 



?A0 HARP OF LIFE. 

was "all thing's to all men:" a Jew to the Jew — a 
Greek to the Greek — weak to the weak — that he 
"might save some." He followed, like his Lord and 
Master, no traditions nor effete systems when it be- 
came necessary to do a good thing-. Like Napoleon, 
who conquered the world by a new line of tactics, 
so Paul acted largely, though inspired, through 
sanctified sagacity and common sense in the great 
work which he accomplished. He often speaks "as 
a man" in the midst of divine revelation — and so he 
acted in matters of method. 

Jesus Christ is specially the great shining exem- 
plar of the conservative in principle, the liberal in 
spirit, and the radical in practice. He was neither 
affected by libertinism, fanaticism or moss-backism. 
Especially was Jesus not a moss-back — the charac- 
ter with which we now treat; and He went against 
all the traditions and practices of the old systems 
and customs which He came to destroy. He was 
especially the object of persecution upon the part of 
the moss-back Pharisees and Scribes and Elders be- 
cause He did not do as they did. He could heal, 
or pluck and eat the ears of corn on the Sabbath 
day; and he could sit down and eat and drink with 
publicans and sinners, all to the utter horror of 
the old moss-backs of Judaism. It took Christ to 
launch the world upon a new and progressive era 
simply upon the ground of inflexible adherence to 
truth and principle — a Catholic spirit to a lost 
world — and radicalism of method in the development 
of his system in the earth. He said: "Go ye into all 
the world and preach the gospel to every creature;" 
but he specified no fixed method by which His 



THE MOSS-BACK. 241 

Churches and His people should do the work of be- 
nevolence, education and evangelism among- all men. 
He left His people to the privilege and variation of 
methods according - to conditions and circumstances 
in every period of development, and he can evangel- 
ize the world by the dispersion of the Church as at 
Jerusalem; or by the voluntary movements of Philip, 
as in Samaria; or by the more regular methods of 
Paul and his companions; or by the subordinate 
work of a Timothy and a Titus under Paul; or by 
the * 'twelve" and the ''seventy" who went out and 
came back, two by two; or as God's people have va- 
riously done in every age, to save the lost nations 
of the earth. 

Finally, Christ is the spirit and impersonation of 
progress in all the world and in all the ages. Inflex- 
ible in His fundamental truths and principles — flexi- 
ble and free in his governmental institutions . and 
ordinances which are few and simple — liberal in 
spirit as He loved the lost world for which He died — 
He was radical and aggressive in all His methods of 
work among men. He knocked down with icono- 
clastic and sledge-hammer blows, all the old, tradi- 
tional, crystallized, fossilized manners, customs 
and systems which had fastened upon religion and 
progress, and which held the world down to the 
hard-shell idea, that the way you do, even in meth- 
ods of work, is as important as the work itself. He 
left His Churches in matters of work, to this sanc- 
tified common sense, under the guidance of fixed 
principles and practices and under the illumination 
of the Spirit to think and study and plan, according 
to conditions and emergencies, for the salvation of a 



242 HARP OF LIFE. 

lost world by the gospel. Old non-progressive Ju- 
daism was the very spirit and impersonation of moss- 
backism; and Christ forever and effectually put His 
foot upon its neck and broke its backbone. 




Whitewash, 



TQ) Y whitewashing- we all understand an outside 
^^ coating- of lime and water with a little sizing- 
which doesn't last long-. When applied to charac- 
ter it means something- .made respectable that isn't, 
and which, in spite of all effort to coat over the de- 
fects and spots of life or reputation, will not last 
long-, nor deceive the world that knows all about the 
facts of our history, or the blemishes of our nature. 
Lime and water will not stand the test of the weath- 
er; and however white and beautiful your palings or 
your houses look for a season, the first rain or so 
will expose the original grain and color of your 
boards. Whitewash will come off, no matter how 
or how often you daub it on. The fact is, the best 
grades of paint these days cannot stand the rain or 
the sunshine. 

Whitewashing is as old as the Bible, and for that 
matter as old as the world. Adam and five happen- 
ed not to know anything of the use of lime and water 
when they fell in the garden of Eden; and I have no 
doubt if they had they would have put on a coat of 
whitewash instead of a coat of fig leaves. All the 
same it was an attempt — a feeble one at that — to 
cover the shame of their nakedness in the light of 
their sin, and man has been at the business ever 

(245) 



246 HARP OF LIFE. 

since. All efforts, in fact, of self righteousness 
which leads to hypocrisy is an attempt at whitewash 
before God and man; and there never was a thinner 
veil put between us and the all-seeing- eyes of the 
Eternal. Job understood this when he said that if 
he should wash himself with fuller's soap and snow 
water God would plunge him in the ditch and his own 
clothes would abhor him. The whole Jewish race, 
by ritualism and formalism, became a whitewash- 
ed race of whited sepulchers — full of rottenness and 
dead men's bones — a beautiful cage of unclean birds 
and of ravening wolves; and it is no wonder that in 
the dazzle of Christ's purity and grace they rejected 
him and made themselves red and not white in the 
guilt of His blood. 

Peter speaks of this whitewashing process even in 
the profession of the religion of Jesus Christ, when 
he represents the false professor as the sow return- 
ing to her wallowing in the mire. The "stony- 
ground" believer only runs well for a while; and we 
need not wonder that under so much false and flat- 
tering evangelism so many whitewashed hogs get 
into the Churches. It is only a question of time how- 
ever, when the hog will go back and wallow in his 
old mire. No matter how bright and enthusiastic 
his profession, no matter how zealously and luminous- 
ly he starts off, all his light is foxfire and all his 
clothing is whitewash. He can't last long in a 
church which has any spirituality in it, or under a 
pulpit where the gospel standard is held up. The 
unchanged heart will gravitate back to old habits 
and principles where no change has been wrought; 
and the teaching and example of a Godly Church will 



WHITEWASH. 247 

soon discover to the whitewashed sow that her re- 
ligion is all on the outside and that there is nothing 
on the inside. If the Church and the preacher are a 
whitewashed concern, then the whitewashed hog, 
while he may wallow again in the mire, will have no 
contrasted light in which to see his mud; and hence, 
in all such Churches and with all such preachers, 
there is a multitude of hogs which sit in the pews 
and sing Psalms and listen to sermons and give sums 
and do work and crow about their wealth and social 
standing and boast of their fine selves and go on 
down to the Devil from the house of God like a lot of 
cattle from the stockyard to the slaughter pen. Let 
us all beware of the "wood, hay, stubble," which 
we build on Christ for popular effect and for Church 
and denominational success in the spirit of pride and 
partisanism; and let us be sure that we shall see it 
all burned up, even if we should escape so as by 
fire, amid the judgment tests of that final and decis- 
ive day. 

Notwithstanding the fact that there is not much 
necessity for it so far as this world is concerned, 
whitewash is still the order of our day. There is 
nothing much to compel Phariseeism at this period 
of human history! It is almost popular to go to the 
penitentiary with some people; and would be more 
so if it were not a little inconvenient and if the terms 
of servitude were only shortened up a little more by 
executive clemency under the popular petitions of a 
sympathizing public. You can't hang anybody but 
a negro — and not often him — except at the end of a 
lyncher's rope. Men and women can do pretty much 
as they please in the Churches without any coat of 



248 HARP OF LIFE. 

whitewash; and a good, old-fashioned Pharisee of 
ancient times would, as a curiosity, be a refreshing- 
sight. He doesn't have to be now; and what is true 
of the Churches is true of society, business and pol- 
itics. Like priest, like people; and like Churches, like 
country. Our social circles have scandals, but the 
money whitewash can cover up the stain of social 
guilt if you can put on a good coating of it. In bus- 
iness walks, the biggest thieves are the heroes, and 
only the petty fools stand condemned. Even when 
public condemnation of vice and crime follows guilt 
it is based more upon the folly of being caught than 
upon the perpetration; or else it is based more large- 
ly upon the injury done the public than upon the 
quality or the quantity of evil accused. The court 
house is simply a public laundry establishment, so 
far as vice and crime are concerned, in which to 
whitewash the clothes of rich and influential crimi- 
nals; and corrupt judges, shyster lawyers and pro- 
fessional jurors are the greatest curses of our 
day. 

In political circles whitewashing is feebly at- 
tempted often, but if so the subject is awfully black. 
Ordinarily it is hardly necessary; and, in fact, if a 
man is put up " by the party," it is often the case 
that the worse he is, the better. No good or great 
man can get into office who needs no whitewashing, 
or who is not willing to whitewash the villainy 
which nominates him and proposes to elect him to 
office. Hence, there are institutions of vice and cor- 
ruption, of fraud and combinations for policy, which 
are whitewashed and made respectable by laws and 
sustained by the politicians in order to secure and 














v<^^^Si!^«^^ 


' 


#rf^ 


\v-~v-- : :^$^ 









sssr 



WHITEWASH. 251 

retain office. The saloon is a great whitewashed 
monster — licensed and legalized by law — and held up 
by political partyism in order to get the office or the pie 
thereof. The race track, the brothel, the low thea- 
tre, Sunday base-ball, Sabbath desecration and the 
like are all whitewashed sins against God and coun- 
try and society, in order that men may hold the pop- 
ular suffrage and position bestowed by the licentious 
masses which practically rule our government. 
The Romish Church, the wolf in sheep's clothing in 
this country, is cajoled in return for cajolery, and 
is whitewashed in her monster sins and principles 
and purposes in order that she may be used for par- 
tisan aims in the politics of our country; and the 
Bible, for her sake, is kicked out of our public 
schools which yesterday she pronounced as Godless 
and of the Devil and to-day she is seeking to get 
control of in her own interests and by specious legis- 
lation. 

Our very laws in business circles are so construct- 
ed as to whitewash the bankrupt, the homesteader 
and the debt dodger. A man fails with a big re- 
serve behind the counter, or tied up under his wife's 
possession, or even honestly; and under the disposi- 
tion of an assignment he is whitewashed of all legal 
obligation even to pay back what is due, perhaps, to 
suffering women and children, and which has been 
wasted or squandered in style or fashion upon some 
other women and children. The effect of such laws, 
except in extreme and general emergencies, is to de- 
moralize business honesty and public virtue, and to 
pave the way to all sorts of financial and legislative 
villainy. I have seen the day when a man could bor- 



252 HARP OF LIFE. 

row a thousand dollars upon honor and without the 
scratch of a pen; but now you can scarcely get a dol- 
lar without the best of collateral security. Confi- 
dence in business circles scarcely exists; and men 
who credit, calculate upon exhausting - their profits 
largely in the moral stealage of their delinquent cus- 
tomers. Often right in the church pew sits the 
"dead beat" who eats his bread and wears his cloth- 
ing at the expense of his defrauded merchant; and, 
not infrequently, the dishonest and whitewashed 
bankrupt sits right by the side of the brother to 
whom he has sent a notice of ten cents on the dollar. 
Many a big sinner is whitewashed at his funeral 
by his preacher, after he dies; and in the cemetery a 
magnificent column of Parian marble is set up over 
his physical corruption to hide the memory of his 
moral corruption. Whitewash, however, will not 
do for heaven; and it will not be of any service in 
hell. The Devil does a good deal of whitewashing 
here, and often the churches baptize goats to make 
sheep out of them; but neither God nor the Devil 
has anything to do with whitewash hereafter. 
Hell is too black and sooty a place for lime water 
coating; and up in glory the garb would be too thin 
for the inspection of the all-seeing eye and for the 
contact of angels and white-robed saints. There is 
a whitewash, however, which is essential to heaven; 
and it is that which is of the blood of Jesus. "Though 
our sins be as scarlet they shall be as wool; though 
they be red like crimson, they shall be as white as 
snow;" and the only thing which can make black 
white is the blood of the cross. Thank God there 
is a fountain spring in the house of David for sin and 



WHITEWASH. 253 

uncleanness; and of all the songs we sing- this is one 
of the most significant: 

"There is a fountain filled with blood, 

Drawn from Immanuel's veins; 
And sinners plunged beneath that flood, 

Ivose all their guilty stains." 

One of the most magnificent scenes in John's great 
vision on the Isle of Patmos was the array of that 
"number which no man could number" clothed in 
white and come up out of great tribulation and who 
had "washed their robes and made them white in 
the blood of the Lamb." It is said that by some 
chemical process blood is used for bleaching woolen 
goods and for clarifying sugar. I know not whether 
it is true or not; but I do know that the blood of 
Christ, an exhaustless fountain, can bleach the gar- 
ments of all the saints ever redeemed by the grace 
of God; and I do know that in that blood the black- 
est sinner that ever lived shall be made whiter than 
the snow clad peak of the loftiest of the Alps. How 
important to have this cleansing! What does it 
amount to if, with a black heart, we are trying to 
carry a whitewashed outside before the world, and 
yet soon to appear before God "without the wedding 
garment" — the "spotless robe" of Christ upon our 
soul! Oh, how careful we are to hide our sins and 
iniquities from the eyes of men! How reckless and 
daring we are to pose before God with our blacken- 
ed and tatooed soul clothed in the filthy rags of a 
double life! How we hide from the imputations of 
men, seek to clear ourselves of guilt before the 
courts of our country, strive to whitewash our char- 
acter by a false reputation in the eyes of the world; 



254 HARP OF life. 

and yet how many millions are daily hurrying" into 
the presence of God— as they have always appeared 
in his sight — with the African's skin unchanged and 
the leopard's spots unremoved! The whitewash of 
crime before the bar of human justice, the whitewash 
of character under the garb of Church membership, 
the whitewash of vice and villainy by the polish of 
fine society, or by the glitter and glow of gfold, will 
fade as the moonshine before the sun at the bar of God 
and in the light of his ineffable and unapproachable 
countenance. The blood of Jesus Christ alone cleans- 
eth us from all sin. 




Kissing* 

'^HE kiss has always been one of the sweetest 
-^ tokens of love and friendship. Nothing" is 
more sacred and holy than a kiss. All through the 
Bible — in all the annals of antiquity — the kiss has 
been the common expression of- confidence, affection 
and intimacy among- men. The brethren of the 
Scriptures saluted each other with a kiss; and among- 
some nationalities the men keep up the same custom. 
I have seen old, roug-h whiskered Germans clasp 
hands, or put their arms about each other, and kiss 
as heartily and lustily as if they had been women; 
and so I have seen fathers and sons kiss as if they 
had been mothers and daug-hters; and brothers and 
brothers as if they had been sisters and sisters. It 
looks a little curious in this day and g-eneration, but 
one of the most refreshing- scenes ever witnessed is 
to see two strong- and burly men kiss each other. 

In no sense or instance can a kiss be sinful when it 
is true to its token or significance, whether between 
the same or different sexes; and yet even when true 
to its object it may be improper. It wouldn't do for 
every young- g-entleman and lady, nor for every 
married g-entleman and lady, to kiss because they 
were friends, when not related. The laws of society 
are such, and such is common sense propriety in the 
nature of thing's that there must be a limit to the 
practice of indiscriminate kissing-. Except between 

(257) 



258 HARP OF LIFE. 

persons of the same sex, kissing- is getting- too close 
to one another when not close enough try relationship 
or nature. The shake of the hand is enoug-h, and 
close enoug-h for purity and safety; and the clutching 
of the arm and the holding- of the hand is just 
simply and outrageously too much — "too utterly 
utter" — for anything", when a dude walks with your 
sister, or daug-hter, to church or elsewhere. Men 
may kiss men just as much as they please, and so 
may women kiss women, ad infinitum; but human 
nature is such between the sexes, when not related, 
that there must be a bar erected between the lips 
even of the friend and the lover. 

There is something- wonderfully magnetic and 
thrilling- in a passionate kiss. When two sets of 
lips come tog-ether it is like two clouds charg-ed with 
electricity, the one positive and the other negative; 
and the result is, in certain cases, an emotional ex- 
plosion and cloud-burst of excessive passion and 
ecstacy. A kiss goes straight, like the shock of a 
galvanic battery, to the heart; and the weaker party 
is always paralyzed under the blow, whether for 
good or ill, or for weal or woe. Nothing has more 
of Heaven's fire, or the fire of hell, in it than the 
kiss of a lover, or of a villain; and the first step of 
the fiend incarnate, in order to destroy the innocent 
but deluded victim in his clutches, is to get his lips 
to hers. The lips are often the gate to the citadel of 
virtue in the young and loving heart; and thousands 
have surrendered the fortress of character to the 
thrilling kiss of the licentious libertine who well 
knows its psychologic and dynamic power when 
affection and confidence have been won in a woman's 



KISSING. 259 

heart. The touch of his hand is foul and leprous 
enough. His embraces are as deadly as the coil of 
the anaconda; but beware, above all, of the serpent 
charm of his eye and the fatal magnetism of his lips 
when, O young- woman, you put yourself in his 
arms and your face near his to be kissed. I have 
known of several young ladies who, under the 
mesmeric infatuation of such a moment, became ob- 
livious of their existence and surroundings. 

Even what is called the lover's kiss is a dangerous 
and deadly thing, and is the result of dramatic and 
romantic education. Romeo and Juliet are stereo- 
typed upon the brain of the visionary who is created 
by novel reading and theater going. "He" and 
"She" are trained up to the "hugging and kissing" 
scene in the lover's story or the lover's drama, until 
the idea that courtship and marriage would be 
insipid and monotonous without the lover's kisses 
and embraces. Otherwise it wouldn't be heroic and 
gallant; and thus it is that in the very nature of the 
novel and the stage play our young people are 
trained to the infatuation of a familiarty and a con- 
tact which can with any sort of purity and safety 
belong alone to married or family life. No wonder 
the course of true love so often runs roughly and 
uncertainly. It is too often deluged in kisses and 
embraces, or washed away with poetic effusions and 
protestations, or checkered with flowers and bram- 
bles which are alike watered with the tears of 
a thousand misunderstandings and reconciliations. 
There is no common sense or propriety in half the 
love affairs among young people; and the kiss and 
the hug of the lover have often either bred contempt 



260 HARP OF LIFE. 

by familiarty or else degenerated into licentiousne^v 
which has turned many a well-begun and well-meant 
match that never mated, into ruin that never righted. 

In some countries and communities it is the conven- 
tional privilege of lovers engaged to hug and kiss 
each other. How much of it there is everywhere 
nobody can tell; but it is certain that in the South 
the custom has never been recognized as proper or 
decent in good society. A young lady of the olden 
times in this section of country, to say the least of 
it, would not have permitted this privilege at the lips 
and the arms of the most ardent and distinguished 
lover; and she would have held him at arm's length 
and finger's end until the marriage ceremony was 
finished. Even then with some of them he would 
have had to scuffle for a kiss; and he would have had 
to wait until the honeymoon was well under way 
before the kissing process became easy and friction- 
less. This seems prudish and old fogyish in this 
progressive day and generation, but the way of pru- 
dence and propriety is the path of purity and safety. 
In the good old days gone by there were not as many 
scandals and divorces in this country as now; and 
forty years ago in the South society was purer than 
it is to-day. It may be that what was then a sin is 
no sin now; but my early recollection of the South- 
ern people was that they were, socially, the purest 
people on earth. I cannot tell how far the Southern 
rule on kissing has varied; but I know that in the 
palmy days of old the noblest and purest man in 
these parts did not kiss the woman he was to marry 
without pistols and coffee for two. 

Beware of the kissing devil. The true friend or 



KISSING. 261 

lover cannot natter nor fondle his angel until she is 
his own by right; and her surest and best way to 
keep his love and respect is to keep him at the tips 
of her fingers and upon his knees and at her feet. 
There is one species of tyranny that every man will 
endure — the despotism of love; and the more he 
writhes in its chains and its fires the hotter and 
purer the flame will burn. A million of times has a 
kiss or an embrace quenched this heavenly flame for- 
ever or turned it into the fire of hell. Even when 
the kissing* and hugging process has preceded and 
ended in marriage, it is not always true that it is a 
pure and unadulterated virtue; and my observation 
has been that the most infatuated and fondling and 
slabbering courtships have ended in unhappy and 
misjudged marriages. Lust instead of love, insan- 
ity instead of reason, hell instead of heaven, lie at 
the foundation of many a marital union; and many a 
married life, as I have said before in a former sketch, 
is nothing more than a lifelong state of legalized 
adultery. 

Beware of the kissing devil. He is seen not only 
in the lustful but the professional kiss, and, above 
all, in the traitor's kiss. Some preachers are very 
much given to kissing the girls and some of the lady 
members of his church and other places; and about 
the most dangerous and costly kiss in the world, 
sometimes, is this same clerical kiss. It has ruined 
many a pastor's influence and lost him his position 
and reward. Even doctors have been destroyed for 
kissing their patients, and lawyers embroiled for 
kissing their clients, and merchants cowhided for 
kissing their customers; and the preacher must re- 



262 HARP OF I^lFE. 

member that his white cravat and broadcloth coat do 
not exempt him from the censure and the punish- 
ment of less conspicuous professionals. There is, 
however, a professional kiss that does not depend 
upon any title for its claim or right of administra- 
tion. It is of itself professional, and merely so 
when, as a matter of custom or habit, one lady kisses 
another whom she may despise; and a million of 
kisses go every day and hour for naught, bestowed 
in cold indifference or deadly contempt. Such kiss- 
ing* of course is lying, and is next to the kiss which 
Judas imprinted upon the face of his Lord and 
Master in order to betray Him into the hands of His 
enemies. 

Good Lord, deliver us from the kissing devil, the 
kiss of lust, the kiss of infatuation, the professional 
kiss and the traitor's kiss. The best things per- 
verted are the worst instrumentalities for evil; and I 
know of nothing so subtle and deadly and damning 
as a burning, thrilling kiss imprinted by the quiver- 
ing lips of lechery and lust. This is the kiss of the 
professional villain and wrecker of virtue and life; 
and it involves all that infatuation and treason imply 
in the mad and reckless indulgence of those passions 
which have destroyed more men and women than 
war, pestilence or famine. Oh, let us remember 
that a kiss is a holy thing; the most sacred of all the 
sweet and endearing tokens of love and friendship 
between man and man; and when given for any other 
reason or purpose, let us remember that the kiss be- 
comes the blackest and basest of all the infernal lies 
ever perpetrated by the human lips. Let us, too, 
remember that propriety and purity of life, the pre- 



KISSING. 263 

servation of family and social virtue, forbid this 
token except to those to whom the right belongs; and 
that this right is limited and guarded by the laws 
of prudence, probity and common sense. 




The Egg of Unbelief, 



TIA7ITH this sketch is presented the worst egg 
v v that was ever laid or hatched. It was pro- 
duced and incubated by the Devil in the heart of Eve, 
the ''mother of all living - ;" and it gave birth to 
a serpent which vomited out all the eg-g-s which 
broug-ht forth the whole brood of serpent sins that 
now curse the earth. All other sins were born in 
the womb of unbelief, conceived and developed under 
the temptation of the Devil. Unbelief, in other 
words, is the mother of all sin, the fosterer and for- 
tifier of every iniquity, and no sin is ever reached or 
exterminated until you kill the serpent which was 
born in the eg-g- of unbelief. Eve disbelieved God 
and believed the Devil; and thus our first parents 
fell, and in them fell the human race. Oh! what a 
fall was that! It created a shock whose tremors 
touched the center of the earth and compassed its 
circumference, and will be felt to the end of time 
and throug-hout eternity. It created a groan and a 
wail of woe which echo throug-hout the cavernous 
depths of hell and reverberate to the heig-hts of 
heaven and vibrate throug-hout the universe. Oh! 
that one sin of unbelief! How prolific its offspring", 
which has made the earth weep in streams of blood, 
peopled hell with untold millions of the lost, and cost 
heaven an infinite sacrifice! 

This is the sin of the world, for which, above and 

(264) 




EGG OF TJNBEUEF. 



THE EGG OE UNBELIEF. 267 

inclusive of all else, the Redeemer died. It was in- 
herent in the heart of the firstborn son of Adam; 
and scarce had the history of the human race begun 
before he slew his brother. Like Pallas from the 
brain of Jove, the sin of murder sprang* from the 
heart of Cain full-grown, full-armed and complete 
in all the horrid elements which constitute the hig-h- 
est crime known to the laws of God or man. Cain 
disbelieved God and killed his brother; and thus we 
see that the first eg-g* vomited from this foul and 
original monster was not upon the principle of de- 
velopment from the least to the greatest, but from 
the greatest to the least. From murder he descend- 
ed to indirection and lying-, and so on down. Abel 
believed God, in the promises of Christ, the Lamb 
of God slain from the foundation of the world; and 
he made an offering- of the blood and the fat of rams 
to indicate that faith in the coming- Redeemer. Cain 
offered the fruits of his field, the product of his own 
hands — the symbols of his own self-rig-hteousness — 
which demonstrated his disbelief in the coming- sacri- 
ficial offering- of Calvary; and thus his offering* was 
rejected, while that of his brother was accepted. 
This sin of unbelief — the inheritance of his mother 
— developed murder and lying* and all the other brood 
of moral vipers which characterized his lifelong* re- 
bellion ag-ainst God. 

Thus were born all the multitudinous corruptions 
which destroyed the antediluvian world. E}ven 
with the rig*hteous Noah, who believed God and was 
saved by His grace, unbelief came out of the Ark 
and developed in the hideous form of drunkenness; 
and with the career of a new world it introduced all 



268 HARP OF IvlFK. 

that train of idolatry, ambition, bloodshed and strife 
which polluted the nations and brought them into 
everlasting* conflict with each other and with God, 
even down to this day. Not a human being but in- 
herited it or ever escaped from the foul touch and 
conception of its hideous and awful brood of kindred 
vices, crimes aud miseries which have blackened hu- 
man history and made the world to shriek with sor- 
row, without exception, in every age, country and 
community. This sin of unbelief is universal, abso- 
lute and inherent, and there is not a single oasis in 
the whole dark desert of human experience. 

God chose a single man from whom sprang a sin- 
gle nation which was to be the medium of His oracles 
and His religion to the world, and through whom 
was to come the world's Deliverer; and yet despite 
God's saving grace and providential guidance, the 
father of the faithful sinned, and the Hebrew race 
is a monument to the awful fact that unbelief is the 
curse of this world. No people ever disbelieved God 
and rebelled against Him under such a sublime suc- 
cession and history of miraculous preservation and 
deliverances. The plagues of Egypt, the crossing- 
of the Red Sea and the Jordan dry-shod, the pillar of 
cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, the 
manna and the water in the desert, the awful mani- 
festations of Sinai, the triumphant victories of Is- 
rael over his enemies, wrought by the hand of God, 
the sun standing still on Gibeon and the staying of 
the moon on Ajalon, all this and a thousand things 
more did not keep God's people from unbelief; and 
every form of sin and disaster which ended in cap- 
tivity and final destruction is the most fearful com- 



THE EGG OF UNBELIEF. 269 

mentary upon the fact that the sin of unbelief is the 
source and spring- of every crime which has destroyed 
the human race. 

Christ came into the world to cure the sinner of 
this fatal malady, and yet scarcely had the blood 
dried on the cross, the Holy Spirit descended and the 
Church started upon the glorious career of primitive 
Christianity, before the Kingdom of the Redeemer 
was rent with factions, characterized by vices and 
corrupted by usurpations which destroyed the first 
Churches and resulted in the establishment of an 
empire of pride, ambition and power which exalted 
the minister in the place of God, seized the scepter 
of temporal power and laid the desolating hand of 
persecution upon the faithful. For twelve centuries 
the " woman in scarlet" pursued the "woman in the 
wilderness/ ' according to Revelation; and it was not 
until the dawn of the Reformation that Faith strayed 
back upon the open fields of light and civilization, 
with an open Bible in her hand, and set up again the 
banners of love and liberty. Unbelief did it. The 
perversion of God's word under the reign of dogmatic 
heresies and armed superstition which proved the 
greatest curse that ever blighted the world and 
drenched it in the blood of sainted martyrs and 
steeped it in midnight darkness, sprang from the 
same source that led Eve to eat the forbidden fruit 
and which turned the beautiful garden into a wil- 
derness and the world into a battlefield and a grave- 
yard. 

Even with God's best and purest people this sin 
of unbelief is the God-excluding evil as opposed to 
faith, the God-including grace of our Lord Jesus 



270 HARP OF IvlFK. 

Christ. It perpetually lays a stumbling- stone in our 
path and brings us short of the glory of God, and 
often it brings us into the most grievous follies and 
miseries of rebellion. The Disciples could not cast 
out a devil for unbelief. Peter denied his Lord on 
account of it. Thomas stood doubting in the pres- 
ence of His wounded hands and gaping side. All 
along down the checkered and blood-stained career 
of saints, heroes and martyrs, we hear the wail of 
the Apostle Paul reproduced: "O wretched man that 
I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?" 
Oh, unbelief, unbelief! thou art the egg from which 
was hatched the serpent of all our failures and mis- 
eries, even in the best of our efforts to serve and 
glorify God. Even yet it may be that the unbelief 
of higher criticism, infidelity and undisciplined licen- 
tiousness in the Churches, paving the way again to 
the supremacy of the Beast and the False Prophet 
as of yore, may cast a declining shadow over the 
destinies of the Christian world. Then shall Christ 
come who shall "scarcely find faith on the earth;" 
but in the splendors of the millenium unbelief shall 
be cast out of the world until Satan is ' 'loosed again 
for a little season." Then the world shall pass 
away and the new heavens and the new earth shall 
appear, wherein forever dwelleth righteousness; 
when faith shall end in reality and when there shall 
be no more room for Satan and unbelief. 

Unbelief is the all-damning sin for which Jesus 
Christ died. This is "the sin of the world" which 
He came to take away. Get this sin out of a man's 
heart, and hell is bridged and all other sin disappears. 
It is the sin of the mind — the armed sentinel of the 



THE EGG OF UNBELIEF. 271 

Devil which guards the door of the heart away from 
God's truth and keeps within the impenetrable for- 
tress of the soul all the sins of passion and appetite. 
If only the light of God can penetrate the dark dun- 
g-eon and Christ can enter and be incarnated, then 
unbelief is disarmed and all the devils of the heart 
are excluded. Men are almost always sorrowful for 
the sins of the heart; and a thousand times they would 
turn out lust and lies and murder and adultery and 
drunkenness, but unbelief keeps the iron door of the 
soul locked against Christ without, and against pas- 
sion and appetite within. Only believe Christ, only 
let in the Stranger standing and knocking at the door 
and the inward dominion of these sins is broken and 
their father and protector, UNBELIEF, no more 
holds the fort. He may shy about the door and 
occasionally make a sally with the Devil upon the 
temple of the Holy Ghost, and trouble and misguide 
God's child, but his dominion and power are forever 
broken. 

People are continually under the impression that 
they will be damned if they die in their sins. This 
is a mistake. They are already damned in unbelief 
— "condemned already," as Jesus says. The other 
sins which the serpent of unbelief has hatched are 
only aggravations to our damnation in unbelief. We 
are already lost by nature, born dead, and "by na- 
ture the children of wrath," as the corrupted off- 
spring of the fallen Adam. We should not get to 
the heaven of the gospel even if we were never guilty 
of anything by transgression. Our sinful nature 
would exclude us from heaven if there was no hell 
to go to. It is unbelief that digs a hell and it is faith 



272 HARP OF LIFE. 

that constructs a heaven. "He that believeth shall 
be saved, he that believeth not shall be damned." 
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to 
every one that believeth; and the gospel is the power 
of God unto salvation to him that believeth. The 
blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin when the 
inclusion of justifving faith secures the exclusion of 
damning unbelief. A great many people try to quit 
their meanness and become pure and good, as they 
think, in order to come to Christ and be saved; and yet 
this very notion is the essence of unbelief, which has 
kept its thousands from Christ and from justifica- 
tion by faith. It is the surrender of unbelief and 
the coming to Christ by faith, first of all, that gets 
us rid of sin and clothes us in the saving righteous- 
ness of the Redeemer. Sin can only be renounced 
by repentance toward God through faith in our Lord 
Jesus Christ; and no man can ever be saved from 
unbelief and the consequences of all other sins until 
he washes in the fountain filled with blood. 



Down Grade* 



LOOK upon this picture. See that young man 
upon the wild and unbridled horse of appetite 
and passion. He is sweeping down the hill of reck- 
lessness and desperation at full speed, with the 
Devil seated behind him and plunging his rowels 
into the flanks of his maddened steed. You have 
read of Mazeppa tied hard and fast upon the back 
of a wild horse at full flight through the forest and 
pursued by a pack of howling wolves. It is impos- 
sible to imagine a more desperate and agonizing sit- 
uation; and yet the hopeless and helpless young man 
given over to the insane behests of appetite and pas- 
sion, with his judgment perverted and his will man- 
acled, and speeding down the rocky declivity of dis- 
sipation and ruin, is a picture, while often familiar 
to view, far more horrible and heartrending to our 
sad and sober contemplation. 

It doesn't take much to start a man down hill at 
best; and it takes less to keep him a going than it 
does to start him down. Nothing is easier than go- 
ing downhill, unless it is to drop through the air; 
and when a man gets a good start, he can jump two 
or three times the height of his own head. The 
further, too, he goes, the faster he gets until he 
jumps off or smashes up. The momentum becomes 
greater, the resistance gets lighter until it seems as 
if everything was prepared to help him hellward. 

(275) 



276 HARP OF LIFE. 

But few ever assist a man up hill. However in 
need of help, most people seem to think a poor fel- 
low struggling- upward ought to be able of himself 
to get to the top; and when he gets there everybody 
wants to help him when he doesn't need it. Not so 
when he is going downward and when, as Josh Bill- 
ings observes, 4 'everything seems to be greased for 
the occasion." His enemies will kick him; his friends 
will "let him slide;" the pious will cry: "Poor fel- 
low;" the philosopher will preach the "survival of 
the fittest;" while the busy world will exclaim: 
"Every man for himself and the Devil catch the 
hindmost." Men get on the down grade in business 
and never stop till the crash crushes out all pros- 
pects of success and sometimes all hope of life in 
this and the world to come. It is an unpardonable 
sin with men to fail; and but few who fail, however 
honest, are ever helped to recover. A poor fellow 
may go to the dogs and the Devil so far, generally, 
as the charity or aid of the business world is con- 
cerned. 

How much worse it is with the young man on the 
moral down grade! He stops and by degrees turns 
backward down the declivity behind virtue, man- 
hood, aspiration, hope and honor. Especially so 
when, perhaps, a degree of confidence and elevation 
has been reached in the affairs of life and in his re- 
lations with men! How beautiful and glorious the 
promise of a young man rising to usefulness and dis- 
tinction amid the conflicts and temptations of the 
business and social world. How mournful and mel- 
ancholy the change when we behold him turn his 
back on the sun up the hill, with his face and his 



DOWN GRADE. 277 

feet toward the pit at the bottom. The card pack, 
the wine cup, the dance hall, the vulgar play, the 
companionship of bad men and women, the indul- 
gence of vice and then of crime, rapidly change the 
heart and then turn the head to look backward and 
downward; and with steadily increasing pace he gets 
to going and then to running and then to rushing 
and then to plunging and then to swirling until with 
a swish and a crash he sweeps off into the steep 
down gulf of his own self-wrought and everlasting 
ruin. Nothing could stop him. The prospects of 
business, the hopes of life faded from his blinded 
vision. The ties of family, friend and sweetheart 
were snapped asunder and forever. Love died with 
the death of sensibility to shame and fear. The ter- 
rors of hell and the wooings of heaven were alike 
drowned in the oblivion of God and immortality. 
The tears of mother froze upon the coffin of his 
buried purposes and ambitions. All the moorings of 
early manhood were swept away. 

A dying California stage driver was observed to 
put his foot out of the bed and reach for something. 
4 'What do you want?" asked the nurse. "I am on 
the down grade and can't get my foot upon the 
breaks;" and this is just the point the young man 
reaches on the down grade of sin and ruin. He can't 
get his foot on the breaks, when he has gone too far. 

I knew such a young man in my boyhood whose 
history rushes upon my memory now w r ith the most 
vivid recollections as I try to touch the subject be- 
fore me. A better father and mother no boy ever 
had. Sweeter sisters or nobler brothers never 
adorned the crovwn of family relationship; and no 



278 HARP OF life: 

young- man ever started out with fairer prospects, 
backed up by all that wealth, education; manhood 
and ability could bestow, and flattered by every 
promise of a happy and successful future. He grad- 
uated and came home with the first honors of his col- 
lege, easily won over his talented competitors. In 
the close of his college life, however, he had learned 
to drink and gamble and otherwise indulge his vices; 
and though he started out brilliantly in the practice 
of law, which he subsequently studied, it was not 
long until signs of dissipation and manhood's decay 
had set their marks upon his soul, and his once 
handsome face. He won some distinction, went to 
the legislature, but while he was apparently climb- 
ing the hill of success and honor upon the stage of 
his profession, he was rapidly descending the hill 
behind the scenes. Drunkenness and debauchery 
openly set in. He wallowed in the gutter. He rode 
the streets with vile women. He squandered his 
estate; and at last he became so degraded and low 
that he was abandoned and forsaken of even the 
meanest of companions. One night he went to the 
window of a prominent gentleman who had refused 
to recognize him, and shot him to death; and while 
in jail awaiting his trial he took his own life. Be- 
hind him he left a broken hearted family; and like the 
young man in the picture, he rode the wild horse of 
passion into the bottomless pit. Alas! alas! for 
whiskey, which was mostly at the bottom of it all! 

Descensus averno — down the hill. But what of 
this instance? It is only one of a thousand of which 
every one has been cognizant in life. Every day we 
either see or read of some such calamity to the young 



DOWN GRADE. 279 

manhood of our country. Wildly and recklessly, 
everywhere our men are on the down grade — going- to 
the Devil as fast as the maddened and foaming* steed 
of passion and appetite can gallop to distruction and 
damnation; and our "very best society," as it is 
facetiously called, is often the school in which the 
downward way to death is learned. So long* as the 
vicious customs and dissipations of so-called "good 
society" shall dominate the early training- of our 
youth, we may expect to see the young- men of every 
generation trooping- like cohorts of wild horsemen to 
the perdition of body, mind, soul, honor, hope and 
all we hold dear in this and the life to come. So 
long- as the ung-uarded parlor, the social club, the 
vicious theatre, the g-ilded brothel and the dazzling 
saloon, fostered by the suffrages and sympathies of 
high as well as low society, shall be recognized, li- 
censed and patronized by a shameless public senti- 
ment, we shall continue to look upon the wreck 
and the ruin of both young manhood and woman- 
hood. 

How often does this down grade spectre enter the 
circle of married life! Many of our young men, and 
women, too, are trained up to be nothing more than 
animals. They are not even up to cultivated dogs 
and other beasts which are educated for show and 
usefulness. These young people mingle and mix 
with each other, sometimes in lascivious or loose 
familiarity; and every day our purest girls are sub- 
jected to the foul contact of association with some 
of these human dogs dressed up and trained in ' 'good 
society!" Occasionally one of them marries the love- 
ly daughter of some "first class" family; and the 



280 HARP OF LIFE. 

honey moon is scarcely passed before his drunken- 
ness and lechery or other unprincipled villainy brings 
disgrace and infamy upon the bride of a day who, 
perhaps, thought, if nothing more, it would be a 
"big thing" just to be connected with the fine family 
of this fine young two-legged cur that was accus- 
tomed to walk in "good society!" How often we 
see young married life nipped in the bud of its beauty 
and glory by the union of an angel with an animal 
who had covered up his private life and character 
with fine clothes and cultured manners and splendid 
pretentions so as to impose upon the credulity and 
affections of some silly victim and some thoughtless 
family. It is the fad and fashion of the day to mar- 
ry a man already on the down grade; and the result 
is a divorce or a life of wretchedness and shame in 
which a whole family goes to the bottom of the hill 
and to the Devil with the man on horseback. 

Why will a young man — why will any human be- 
ing — ride down the hill of life to death and damna- 
tion? Why is it that a man can get so low and go 
so far down into the depths of degradation and in- 
famy? What is the matter with man? SIN! The 
animal follows his instincts without the excessive 
indulgence of appetite or passion; and according to 
nature or education, he so lives and becomes subser- 
vient as to win our admiration and our love. We are 
proud of our dogs and horses and cats and canaries; 
and yet how often we mourn that ever a child was 
born into our families, or that we ever had a man for 
a husband or a woman for a wife! With all the ad- 
vantages of intellect, sensibility, will, conscience, 
hope and aspiration which can lift us to God and 



DOWN GRADE. 281 

heaven, men everywhere turn down grade to hell; 
and it would be better for thousands if they had 
been born dogs. They are a thousand times worse 
in a multitude of cases than the meanest dog that 
ever killed a sheep or bit you in the dark or went 
mad with hydrophobia. ''Created but a little lower 
than the angels," we fall so low as to become the 
companion of devils; and oh! what a multitude are 
sweeping down to the bottomless pit upon the un 
bridled horse of appetite or passion. Drunkenness, 
lust, avarice, envy, hatred, pride, ambition, pleasure 
— all are the galloping steeds upon which millions 
ride to death; and seated behind their victim sits the 
Devil to spur and animate to the last leap of doom 
the maddened courser upon which ride some of the 
grandest spirits which were ever born among men. 

I have seen men ride to death in battle in the face 
of the enemy, through a shower of shot and shell; 
but they rode for honor and died for glory. How 
fearful to see men as daringly and fearlessly ride to 
death in the face of hells artillery, and leap into the 
jaws of hells doom; for what? For dishonor and 
degradation and damnation! 

To look into the fine face of a promising, hopeful 
boy, and think of the possibilities for evil as well as 
for good, of the chances for ruin as well as for re- 
demption — of failure as well as success — it often 
startles us with a train of painful forebodings in 
spite of all the force of education and religion we 
have at hand for his elevation to higher life and to 
heaven itself. What can we do put plant ourselves 
upon the old proverb of Solomon: "Train up a child 
in the way that he should go," and upon the admoni- 

19 



282 HARP OF LIFE. 

tion of Paul: ''Bring- up your children in the nurture 
and admonition of the Lord." The rule seems to 
have some exceptions. We wonder often that the 
sons of Samuel turned out no better than the sons of 
Eli; but the rule in the main holds good — perhaps 
would have no exceptions if wisely, patiently and 
trustfully followed. At all events, our only hope is 
in God and his Christ; and as we stand often ap^ 
palled in the sight of so many down grade disasters 
among the young men of our day, it ought to be a 
mighty stimulus to the Christian world to do more 
for them than we do. Let us try to pull down the 
strongholds of the Devil about them; and gathering 
around them with universal sympathy and prayer 
and exhortation, let Christians and Churches go out 
into the highways and hedges and gather them in. 
Above all, and first of all, let parents and teachers 
begin with the young man in the baby and in the 
boy; and let us remember to-day that many a father 
and mother and teacher is responsible for that 
dreadful Sheridan ride which is not from Winchester 
to Cedar Creek, but from the home and the school 
Jbouse to hell. 




THK BORE. 



The Bore. 



"Society is now one polished horde 

Formed of two mighty tribes, the bores and the bored." 

— Byron. 

"\\7ARIETY is the spice of life, but sometimes it is 
v very peppery when we are called upon to taste 
something of everything- out of respect to the whole 
bill of fare set before us in life. The golden thread 
of unity runs through the variegated web of diver- 
sity, but that web is often tangled and complicated 
to our apprehension when we are compelled to grap- 
ple with the problems and paradoxes of life. Selfish- 
ness is always averse to puzzles that take our 
time and conflict with our pleasure or interest. 
However normally adjusted contradictory things 
may be to our conditions in the long run, we are apt 
to view narrowly that which brings us adversity, 
perversity or perplexity instead of prosperity, recti- 
tude, or explication. Why not have all sunshine, 
peace, health, wealth and undisturbed repose in a 
world so full of resources for profit and happiness? 
Why have cyclones and blizzards, snakes and liz- 
ards, poverty, misfortune, sickness and death? Sel- 
fish ignorance and blasted laziness are always ask- 
ing such fool questions; and we are prone to forget 
that, incidentally, the evil as well as the good is es- 
sential to the development of all positive worth and 
happiness in this sinful and sluggish life. But for 
Satan we had never known heaven; and we should 

(285) 



286 HARP OF LIFE. 

never have realized in the light of contrast and con- 
flict, the highest development and exaltation of man 
and the greatest good to the greatest number 
through salvation by grace. The tree of Knowledge 
of good and evil was as important in Eden as the 
tree of life; and the very worst often proves the best 
for us. 

But we are prone to philosophize to the contrary 
amid the pestilential and purifying ordeals through 
which our flesh and blood must pass. When aggra- 
vated and fatigued beyond patience, we occasionally 
wonder why God allows some things to exist on 
troubled society. Why could we not get along without 
liars, thieves, rakes, dead-beats, idiots and the like? 
Above all, there is one character who torments us 
before the time and out of time, and when often we 
would give a kingdom for an inch of time. I mean 
the bore! 

Well, who and what is he? Why he is a regular 
''stick in the mud" who must be endured and never 
cured at the expense of wasted politeness and effort 
to entertain him. Sometimes he is a crank who 
rides his hobby bareback and rough shod over you, 
and who must have your attention nolens volens. 
Perhaps he is a solicitor for — well, the Lord only 
knows for what not in these days; and he must have 
your valuable time were you just on the way to bury 
your aunt. Or again, it may be your brother who 
sleeps with you at the Association, or the hotel, and 
insists upon talking to you all night, or who snores 
until daybreak. Then there is the lovesick swain 
who does not understand when the mitten has been 
given him, and who cannot recognize a knock-down 



THE BORE. 287 

hint. Alas! too, there is the sponge that eats up 
your bread and takes up your room, and presumes 
upon your hospitality, when he knows you despise his 
presence and loathe his company. He has the 
4 'cheek" of a Pennsylvania Canal horse; and he is 
but little ahead of the fellow who comes into your 
office every day to read the papers, smoke his pipe 
and talk to you about the news. Oh, there are 
scores who have nothing- else to do but waste your 
time, fatigue your patience and shorten your days 
about matters that neither interest you nor concern 
you; and much of the lack of loving- kindness and 
tender mercy and gentle culture, characteristic of 
this rapid and enterprising age, is due to the mul- 
titudinous and ubiquitous bore who is everlast- 
ingly bothering the world, which hasn't any time to 
pay attention to him. 

We are bored, too, by many other things than men 
and women. There are books, newspapers, edito- 
rials and articles, insipid sermons, cut and dried 
speeches, spring poetry, stale wit and "old chest- 
nuts" always being cracked that bore us in print and 
oratory; and then there are dead prayer meetings, 
funeralistic Sunday school exercises, vocal and instru- 
mental performances called music and the like which 
perforate us with the spiral insistence and the twist- 
ing tortures of the gimlet or the auger. Again, 
there are annual resolutions upon the same old sub- 
ject passed at Associations and Conferences which 
never materialize in action; there are church meet- 
ings for business at which nothing is ever reported 
as done, and in which the brethren beat the air with 
useless eloquence; there are church rows over per- 



288 HARP OF LIFE. 

sonal offences which drag* out a lifetime of wasted 
energy and cruel division over God's people; and, 
worse than all, there is the stagnant report of the 
churches every year at the Association that they are 
at peace with the world, the flesh and the Devil, or 
words to that effect, with a contribution of fifty 
cents to Foreign Missions! This is enough to bore 
the patient God who was so nauseated at the Church 
of Laodicea that he threatened to spew it out of his 
mouth. It does seem in the light of the century, that 
the patience of God would become threadbare with 
such a thing as stinginess toward the work of send- 
ing the gospel to all the world for which Christ died. 
By classification we might get at the bore in a more 
analytical way, but we have to take things in these 
random and hasty sketches as they come. We have 
touched upon the pulpit bore, the office bore, the so- 
ciety bore, the soliciting and other bores of a per- 
sonal character; but there is one other, among many 
more bores, we must not fail to mention. I allude 
to the "bad health" bore. He has the hypochondria, 
the hysterics, dyspepsia and a score of other mala- 
dies all combined and complicated. He always 
has a "pain in the head, hip and side;" and he 
is ever unhappy, dissatisfied with the world. No 
matter how hale and hearty he looks, nor howsoever 
happily surrounded or situated, he is never well. 
"How are you, brother Johnston?" "I'm not well — 
I'm not well;" and so he replies to you a thousand 
times a year, if you ask him the question. He 
grunts and groans and sighs and moans and com- 
plains always; and he is a perfect nuisance to him- 
self and friends. Nobody wants to meet him, and 



THE BORE. 289 

often you turn across the street to keep from coming- 
in contact with him, and in order to avoid hearing 
that same old chestnut bell rung: "I'm not well!" 
Sometimes it seems a pity that such people, if the 
Lord willed, could not die and go home to heaven; 
but, generally, they eat more, do less and live longer 
than most people. 

Well, there are several other kinds of the genus 
bore which while they do not come exactly under the 
head of the present discussion, it may not be amiss 
to mention. There are some people who ought to 
be bored for the simples, as the ox for the hollow 
horn, but most of us have no gimlet for an operation 
we may ourselves need. There are those who bore 
cotton bales, or who bore for oil, gas, or water, or 
who make holes for pegs, mortise joints and the like. 
These are they who bore for a purpose and not for 
worry. They mean business; and often they per- 
forate you with the auger of double and twisted ras- 
cality. The burglar bores into the bank vault and 
blows it up for the money that's in it; and the de- 
faulting cashier otherwise bores into the cash pile 
for the same purpose. The speculator, the sharper, 
the gambler, is always "boring for it," as the say- 
ing goes; and our unsophisticated and unsuspecting 
citizen is the constant victim of his scheming gimlet. 
He bores into your confidence and credulity and then 
bores into our cotton bales and wheat bins and lard 
barrels and "corners" our pocketbooks. Our boom 
towns and broken banks and dilapidated firms and 
bursted enterprises, are generally the victims of the 
sharper's in-auger-ated hole, bored first into public 
confidence and then into the greenback roll of the last 



290 HARP OF I^IFK. 

purchaser. Look out for the fellow who bores first for 
"gas" and then for "ile" and then for "water" for 
his ' 'stock, " and who finally leaves you and your bus- 
iness honeycombed with his in-auger-al perforations. 

Whoever and whatever the bore is, he is either a 
nuisance or a villain; and he must on the one hand 
be endured by good breeding - , etiquette and long* suf- 
fering - charity, or on the other avoided by human 
sagacity. Like all other afflictions of life he but 
demonstrates the truth so potently put by Paul that 
"tribulation worketh patience, and patience experi- 
ence or proof, etc,;" and it is the part of the Chris- 
tian especially to "glory in tribulation also." The 
bore, among- the many other pestilences of human 
exitsence, has the crucial mission of testing" and 
strengthening- the patience of our souls. Be sure 
never to be a bore yourself, neither to yourself nor 
to others; nor so live as that life and its respon- 
sibilities shall prove a bore to you and your neigh- 
bors. The man who finds time a bore and tries 
to kill it — who finds duty a task and virtue a 
burden and beauty abhorrent — may not always be 
a bore to other people, but he is a bore unto his 
own soul. To him all the g-ood world is a bore, 
except for its temporal and licentious gratifications; 
and the best thing- for the world, if not for himself, 
is to g-et out of it. The wretchedest of all bores is 
the man who is a bore unto himself; and it is no 
wonder that when others may be bored to the verg-e 
of suicide, that the self-bore so often finds life not 
worth living-, shoots out his brains or goes to bed on 
a final dose of morphine. 

Alas! to some people everything great or good is ? 



THE BORE. 291 

bore. Wisdom, virtue, religion are insipid and dis- 
tasteful. The house of God is an arid spot in a 
weary land. The sweetest music, the richest sermon, 
the divinest worship are but spiritual nausea which 
gags the depraved or the indifferent heart; and 
strange to say, many who belong to the Churches, 
who profess to be the children of God, seem to have 
no relish for sacred things and holy exercises. Ev- 
erything in the service of God is stupid, platitudi- 
nous and vapid, a task and a bore, and hence thou- 
sands of them stay at home on Sundays or seek 
pleasure elsewhere. They have no appetite for the 
bread of heaven, no thirst for the water of life, no 
taste for the wine and the milk and the honey of 
grace. The Bible, the family altar, prayer and 
praise are all an intolerable bore; and God only 
knows what really good thing is not a bore even to 
many who profess the religion of Christ. They en- 
joy the card pack and the wine cup and the stage 
play and the novel and the vulgar jest and the like, 
and alas! there is no charm to them in heavenly 
things. It's all a bore. 



Chickens Come Home to Roost* 



TUTOWEVER the chickens scatter about or wan- 
•"••^ der away during the day, they come back 
home in the evening* to the old roost. Even when 
they stray off from home, sometimes for several 
days, they will come back if not caught by the hawk 
or the fox or the two-legged thief. Occasionally 
they never get back, but as a rule they will return; 
and the stray man or the stray boy is very much 
like the stray chicken. When wandering he becomes 
satisfied or dissatisfied, the wanderer hunts again the 
old family tree to rest or roost in. After all, ' 'there's 
no place like home," and it is generally the case that 
the rooster, whether older or younger, can always 
find a hospitable welcome back under the old roof, 
however deserted or dishonored. It is not often 
true of the stray hen or the erring pullet. The wife 
or the daughter who leaves a home disgraced rarely 
wants to return, and even if she would she seldom 
finds a welcome. The discrimination between male 
and female immorality seems arbitary and cruel, but 
it is based upon the social estimate of female virtue 
and character essential to social purity and stability. 
Jesus alone made no difference, and nothing but the 
grace of God — not even woman herself — can restore 
the wandering woman to lost honor and position. 
How often we hear sung that touching hymn: 

"Oh! where is my wandering- boy to-night? " 
(292) 



CHICKENS COME HOx>IE TO ROOST. 295 

But we never hear it rendered: 

"Oh! where is my wandering girl to-night?" 

The prodigal son is a fine illustration of the truth 
of this old proverb: * 'Chickens come home to roost." 
It is a fine thing-, a young- fellow thinks, to g-et away 
from the old parental roost, to shift from the famil- 
iar scenes of early life, to see something- of the world, 
to form new acquaintances, enjoy himself, spend his 
money, and have a g-ood time; and the straying- spirit 
is not long in squandering every resource of man- 
hood and character. It is only a question of time 
when such motives and such a course will bring him 
to want and degradation in a land of friendless 
famine; and when all is lost and he comes to himself, 
the pinch of poverty and helplessness will naturally 
turn his heart back to the old family tree where he 
used to rest and roost. Perhaps disgrace and hu- 
miliation will have the effect of making a man of 
him as the better days of home and childhood crowd 
upon his memory, and repentance brings a flood of 
tears and resolutions. Imagination paints in one 
vivid and varied picture the life of the old homestead 
in the years gone by; and the irrepressible inspira- 
tion hastens his weary feet into the quickstep of re- 
turn, and burns his quivering lips with the confes- 
sion of sin. Yonder the prodigal goes back to the 
father's house; and with open and outstretched arms 
he is always received with boundless hospitality 
and love, he is feasted, and with every distinction 
and honor he is crowned. Blessed is the chicken 
who thus comes back home to roost — though some- 
times he comes back home only to wander again and 
finally go to ruin. 



2% HARP OF UFE. 

The backslider is a chicken that sometimes comes 
home to roost. Church chickens often stray away 
from the gospel roost; and the prodigal is a fit type 
of many a Christian who drifts away from the 
Father's house. A sheep will sometimes wander away 
from the fold and from the care of the Good Shepherd; 
and the prodigal's return is a true picture of that 
blessed Shepherd who will leave the "ninety and 
nine" and bring back, at last, the wandering sheep 
through many trials and tears that none but the 
Shepherd and the erring sheep ever know. Alas! for 
the child of God w T ho gets off into the mountains of 
sin, off among the foxes and the wolves, off into 
the meshes of worldly pleasure, business and vice! 
How miserable and wretched and hungry and rag- 
ged and naked he gets in soul and sometimes in 
body! The backslider often reminds me of a poor, 
lame, one-eyed, ham-strung, flop-eared mule, feeding 
about on stubble and sticks, with the Devil's buz- 
zards sitting about and watching for him to die. 
"Here's your mule!" It is wonderful, too, to see 
him come back and get cured up, and feed and fatten 
and kick again under the fostering care and cul- 
ture of grace. Poor old chicken! how pitiful you 
look away from the Lord's roost where once you 
roosted and fed in the gospel coops! How T good is 
God to love and chasten back his wandering child- 
ren, sometimes with many a stroke and stripe before 
it yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness! 
David and Peter were a couple of those chickens re- 
stored to the joy of their salvation. 

But there is another sense in which the old pro- 
verb has gained a meaning. The chickens will 



CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST. 297 

come home to roost under the form of retribution for 
sin. "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also 
reap." As a rule, our wrongs fall at last back upon 
our own heads, if not always in this, yet in the world 
to come. It is the part of crime to work out, in 
some way, its own punishment upon the soul of its 
perpetrator. He that sins against God or man 
wrongs his own soul. The atheistic Voltaire even 
had to confess that life resembled the banquet of 
Damocles, above whom there was suspended a sword 
in the midst of the feast. God's enemies have ever 
had to lick the dust from their own feet. ' 'Nemesis, ' ■ 
it has been well said, "is one of God's handmaids." 
"Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein;" and, after 
all, crime is in conspiracy with the law to bring the 
criminal to justice. "Heaven," as a writer well ob- 
serves, "often regulates effects by their causes, and 
pays the wicked what they have deserved." Yes in- 
deed, the chickens we have hatched in evil, how far 
soever they may seem to have wandered away from 
us, will come back home to roost upon our own heads 
and hearts and destinies. 

I believe in the supremacy of justice — the reign of 
law and order — under the imperial sway of truth and 
righteousness. As Chapin said: "The essence of 
justice is mercy. Making a child suffer for wrong 
doing is merciful to the child. There is no mercy in 
letting the child have its own will, plunging head- 
long to destruction with the bits in its mouth. There 
is no mercy to society nor to the criminal if the wrong 
is not repressed and the right vindicated. We injure 
the culprit who comes up to take his proper doom at 

the bar of justice, if we do not make him feel that he 
20 



298 HARP OF LIFE}. 

has done wrong-." It was the position of Socrates 
that a man was happier and better off even in him- 
self by suffering* for his crime than if he should 
escape punishment; and if justice is mercy to the 
wrong--doer, it is certainly mercy to society. So God 
and society have always taug-ht and practiced. ' 'So- 
ciety," said Dr. David Thomas, ''is like the echoing- 
hills. It gives back to the speaker his words; 
groan for groan, song- for song-. Wouldst thou have 
thy social scenes to resound with music? Then 
speak ever in the melodious strains of truth and love: 
'With what measure ye meet it shall be measured to 
you ag-ain'." The greatest theives and scoundrels 
ride in triumph along- our streets every day, while 
negroes and poor white men gr> punished, but so- 
ciety must pay the penalty of every unpunished crime, 
especially when committed in hig-h places. 

God is the author of the doctrine of retribution. 
He it is who hath doomed every g-uilty man to be his 
own hang-sman — that the chicken hatched in evil shall 
come back to roost upon the head of every evil doer. 
This law is wroug-ht in the very nature of thing's, as 
well as written upon the pag-es of revelation, both 
upon men and nations. "God is a sure paymaster," 
said Anne of Austria to Richelieu. "He may not 
pay at the end of every week, or month, or year; but 
I charg-e you, remember that he pays in the end." 
Every nation that ever smote God's people is dead; 
and when Israel sinned, God sent him into captivity. 
The Jews to-day are a standing- miracle of God's re- 
tributive justice and yet of his covenanted mercies. 
The nations that participated in the partition of Po- 
land were scourg-ed with the sword of Napoleon; and 



CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST. 299 

he beneath whose footsteps the earth trembled as 
with the throes of an earthquake — he who divorced 
Josephine — died an exile in the crater of an extin- 
guished volcano. All of Napoleon's chickens came 
home to roost at St. Helena. 

Some people oppose capital punishment even for 
murder, but the old law of God is plain that "whoso 
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed 
also." This was not a Jewish law, but a law set up 
after the flood under the covenant of peace and prov- 
idence; and no age or development of civilization has 
a right to repeal it until civilization rises above the 
crime and commission of murder. * 'Murder will out" 
and murder — wilful murder — ought always to be 
punished with the forfeiture of the murderer's own 
life. It is said that the gospel abolishes the maxim 
of "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth;" but 
I protest that Jesus was speaking to his disciples of 
personal conduct towards man, not to the courthouse. 
The Christian is to obey the "powers that be" which 
are "ordained of God," pray for and support "all 
that are in authority," and stand by the administra- 
tion of justice; and while he may obey the law of 
non resistance personally as laid down by Christ, he 
is to relegate his wrongs to the courthouse for ad- 
judication and for the good of society. Even the per- 
secutor of the Christian, while the Christian may 
personally submit, is amenable to justice both human 
and divine; and there is nothing in the gospel to prove 
that the chickens of evil shall not come home to roost 
in justice upon every criminal's head according to 
law, both human and divine. 

There is but one way to keep the chickens off the 



300 HARP OF I^IFE. 

soul that comes home to roost in eternal retribution. 
Repentance towards God and faith in' our Lord Jesus 
Christ will keep off the chickens we have hatched in 
evil. Jesus paid the penalty of the believer's sins; 
and although he may not avert the consequences of 
retribution here, he is freely justified from the eter- 
nal condemnation of God's law. The wild oats we 
have sown will be sure to come up down here; but, 
thank God, Christ cuts off the crop from any growth 
or harvest in heaven. We cannot avoid the conse- 
quences of lust and drunkenness and lies and other 
sinful habits once formed in this life; but the chick- 
ens of judgment these vices have hatched for us here 
cannot crow at Peter's conscience up yonder. God's 
child may not escape consequential retribution in this 
life; but all shall be blotted out by the blood of Jesus 
for the life to come. More than this, Christianity 
ratifies the sense of retributive justice in the con- 
verted soul here below; and little Zaccheus, when he 
came down to Christ from the tree, felt like paying 
back four fold for all his wrongs and like giving half 
his goods to feed the ppor. He called up all the old 
chickens he had hatched in evil not to roost over his 
roof, but to kill them off in doing good where he had 
done evil. This is a very true type of Christianity. 



Living in Glasshouses and Throwing Stones* 



;> TpHIS sketch illustrates the fact that whoever 
^ lives in a glasshouse and throws stones at 
other people, will be sure to get his own crystal 
palace smashed. Glass makes a very thin, brittle 
and transparent wall to live behind; and it is the 
symbol of the characters of the faulty and the fault- 
finding fool who throws stones at other people, and 
at whom everybody else will return the compliment. 
It may be well enough to cast bowlders at sinners 
from behind a fortress. It is likely even then that 
the stone slinger may get picked off by some sharp- 
shooter in ambuscade; but the greatest ass and the 
meanest knave among the human family is he who 
stands behind a glass pane structure and slings cob- 
bles at his neighbors. 

The man who attempts to correct or characterize 
his neighbor's faults should be faultless; at least, he 
should be better in all respects than the man he stig- 
matizes. ' 'Physician, heal thyself ' is always the stone 
which is thrown back at the man who throws stones 
from a glasshouse; and along with this stone comes 
every other stone of stumbling and offense which the 
stone flinger's conduct and character have created. 
Every stone thus thrown is a boomerang to the man 
who is guilty of the sins he condemns in others. 
The kicking mule is the one of all others which gets 
kicked back. The biting dog has more scars upon 

(303) 



304 HARP OF LIFE. 

his body than any other dog-. The fighting- cock is 
the rooster from which the most feathers are 
plucked, and he seldom or never lives out half his 
days. If there is one instinct sharper than 
another it is to pay a man back in his own coin, how- 
ever justly or unjustly he assails our life, or family, 
or friends. No matter how guilty we are of the 
charg-es preferred, we cannot brook rebuke or scan- 
dal at the hands of no one better than ourselves. We 
squirm and writhe under reproach from an angel — 
we are disposed to rebel ag-ainst God when his Word 
holds the looking-glass before our sins — but the vil- 
est wretch beneath the sun scorns the reproof of the 
Devil. 

One of the mysteries of iniquity is that any man 
in a glasshouse should ever throw stones at other peo- 
ple. The pure and the spotless man most seldom 
deals in censure or criticism. He lets his life and 
example speak oftener and louder against us than 
his words; and when he does deal with our faults 
and infirmities he does it in the spirit of charity and 
forbearance and for our good, without any effort 
at exposure and scandal. There is something in 
virtue and integrity, especially in the absence of 
self-conceit and self-righteousness, which lifts us 
above the necessity of self -vindication ; and this self- 
respect and independence of purity rather pities than 
scorns the failures and infirmities of our fellow man. 
Somehow it is of tenest the villain who wants to hurt 
the erring and the sinning as well as to drag down 
angels. It would seem, often, that a fellow-feeling 
would make the vicious and the criminal wondrous 
kind to each other; and so it does when vice and 



LIVING IN GLASSHOUSES. 305 

crime are confederates for a common purpose. Or- 
dinarily, however, where evil does not link together 
its forces for an object, it is worst at war with itself. 
It seems to hate its own. It is of the Devil, who not 
only wars against all that is good, but who must 
abhor himself and all that is like him; and who can 
only pretend a friendship when it pays by combina- 
tion for evil ends. 

I have seen many illustrations of this fact. I re- 
member one day hearing two licentious women call- 
ing each other by the name of their vocation and 
character, in the most profane and denunciatory 
terms. One drunkard will talk about another 
drunkard as a disgrace to society; and one swindler 
or thief, in business, will most strenuously and per- 
sistently seek to expose and injure his own like in 
the most damaging terms. ''Stone the thief" is 
oftenest the cry of the thief himself. It is impos- 
sible to surpass the vile gad-about and gossiper in 
the slanderous castigation of those around her; and 
under all forms of society, high or low, we see peo- 
ple hurling at each other the sins of which both 
alike are guilty. The hypocrite especially deals in 
this glasshouse business of throwing stones; and 
the more unexposed he keeps himself— the longer he 
can hide his character — the more vicious and ven- 
omous his foul and wicked tongue. 

I said that this spirit is of the Devil who abhors 
himself and abhors his own, and so it is; but there 
is another reason for this vile and inconsistent freak 
in human nature. Every scoundrel in the world 
wants to appear better than he is, and his chief idea 
in the elevation of himself in the estimation of men, 



306 HARP OF LIFE. 

is to pull down everything- else around and above 
him. No pure or lofty spirit ever sought to rise 
upon the ruin of other people, whether above or be- 
low it in character or virtue, but it is the invaria- 
ble rule of the villain, if he cannot rise by dragging 
down his betters, to enter into the pusillanimous 
stratagem of denouncing and calumniating his equals 
and his like. He will do this before strangers who 
may be deceived by him; but he will do it in the 
presence of those who know him to be the villain that 
he is. Strange to say, too, there is something in hu- 
man nature which, though undeceived, is persuaded 
into favor toward such a villain by his boldness and 
assumption of goodness; and every villain who is 
not a fool, well knows this weakness in the credulity 
of human nature and so plays and presses upon it for 
all it is worth. I know some of the worst men in 
the community who can pass well with many people 
by clever manners and loud protestations of virtue 
and vile denunciation of their fellows, even when 
these people know their villainy. We are often 
loth to believe our own eyes in the presence of pre- 
tending rascality; and sometimes in spite of convic- 
tion we are persuaded to believe some people better 
than we know they are. 

There is no class of people the man in the glass- 
nouse takes more delight in throwing stones at than 
the inconsistent Christian. The stone slinger is al- 
ways trying to smash church windows; and when 
Christians stumble or fall, how he makes the mud fly! 
It is most remarkable with what delight the vilest 
gainsayer of religion rolls the sweet morsel of slan- 
der and scandal under his tongue when a minister 



LIVING IN GLASSHOUSES. 307 

happens to stray. It is truly astounding that the 
wicked so hate Christianity, the best evidence of 
which is the pleasure they feel at the failures and 
misfortunes of God's people. It is seen in the 
venomed sensations of the newspapers, the editors 
and managers of which are often the most corrupt 
of all who fling mud and sling stones. The most 
puerile and asinine performance, often, is a moral 
discourse in the form of a secular editorial in a daily 
newspaper, the most of whose space is given to the 
world, the flesh and the Devil, and much of which 
is devoted to the wreck and the ruin of human char- 
acter. 

I remember a scoundrel once who got hold of a 
sensation which involved the character of a good but 
unfortunate man; and when the wife of that man 
tearfully plead that he would spare her husband's 
character, he coolly and devilishly replied: "It is 
our business to break down character." This same 
editor subsequently eloped with another man's wife; 
and the last I heard of him he was behind the bars of 
a county jail awaiting trial for one of the highest 
crimes known to the law. He was a fair and famous 
specimen of the villain who lives in a glasshouse 
and throws stones at better people's reputations. 

Unfortunately, too, sometimes the stone slinger 
is so low and little that he can't be hit back so as to 
be hurt. He can throw stones as well as any other 
slinger, but his glasshouse isn't worth throwing at. 
He can to some extent hurt you, but you can't hurt 
him. He has neither money nor reputation, much 
less honor or manhood; and all you have to do is to 
pay no attention to his slings, however bad he hurts 



308 HARP OF LIFK. 

or annoys you. You have to treat him as David did 
Shimei, who threw stones and cast dust at him; and 
when you can't help yourself, and would do yourself 
no good if you could, the best thing- to do is to let 
the worthless and the small slinger go. David was, 
worse than all, at one time the "song- of drunkards" 
on the streets of Jerusalem; and about the most 
pitiable object in the world is a great and good man, 
fallen and disgraced, the object of ridicule and sar- 
casm at the hands of the base multitude, whose de- 
light is to throw stones at nobility in the mud. 
Bad boys never throw stones at a living lion; but 
there never was one of these young imps of Satan 
that would not stone a dead one. Oh, what a 
blessed and beautiful thing it is never to give the 
groveling mob a handle to hit you over the head 
with! Of all the grinding conditions to a proud and 
lofty spirit, it is to be stoned by a man in a glass- 
house not worth throwing at. The best thing in the 
world is to so live as not to be stoned; and the next 
best thing is, if you have so lived as to be stoned, to 
be able to bear it as David did, and leave it all to the 
Lord to reckon with the mud flinger. 

About the only congenial place for a man who 
lives in a glasshouse and stones his neighbor, is hell. 
If he never gets hit back, or gets his house smashed, 
in this world, his boomerang will reach him in the 
world to come. Chickens will come home to roost 
there. What a terrible scene at the judgment will 
it be for those whose business, here below, has been 
to judge their fellow being! "With what judgment 
ye judge ye shall be judged again," is the awful 
judgment of the Judge of judges. There are many 



LIVING IN GLASSHOUSES. 309 

different and awful sins of which men are guilty in 
this world, but there is nothing much meaner or 
worse than the sin of judging harshly, or wrong- 
fully, or unmercifully, our fellow man. The act of 
kicking a man when he is down, and especially when 
you are as guilty as he, is but the pronouncing of 
damnation upon your own head; and he who has 
shown no mercy to the sins of his fellow man will 
find none at the hands of God. 

It is enough for us when pure ourselves, and in 
the line of duty, to preach righteousness and to de- 
nounce evil. It is our duty as good citizens, as 
faithful Christians, as ministers and members of the 
Church, to "cry aloud and spare not;" and yet, in 
every case, we are to show mercy and help the sinful 
and erring up to God and to heaven. In all the rela- 
tions we sustain to law and order, to domestic 
peace and good government, to Church and State, it 
is our duty to vindicate justice and sustain morality; 
but in all we are to mingle mercy with justice and 
illustrate the spirit of Him who came -to save and 
not destroy. If we throw stones they must be stones 
of truth, flung from the hand of character, and 
thrown to hurt only in order to heal. If true and 
consistent ourselves, we may consistently tell men of 
their sins, to help to cure and save them from evil; 
but no Christian, no good citizen, no honest man, 
though he live not in a glasshouse himself, can 
throw the stone of censure, or punishment, in the 
spirit of the glasshouse man. Love dpes throw 
stones, but they are the stones of a friend. He that 
loves everybody and everything, fears nobody and 
nothing, and though the boldest, bravest, and truest 



310 HARP OF UFE. 

man in the world, he never hits but to help. Thf 
stripes of a friend are always oily — the healing 
lashes of the lover. The mother whips the child 
with whose tears her own mingle; but the chasten- 
ing" of love like that of God alone, yields the peaceable 
fruits of righteousness. 




The Gang. 



A 



CHARACTERISTIC boy is the most peculiar 
animal in the world. Even when he's a baby 
you can tell by his face and his actions that he isn't 
a girl; and from one to twenty he has none of the 
qualities or characteristics of the genus, man. Before 
the age of ten he is in a chrysalis state — the June 
bug- gradually developing from the grub worm, so to 
speak — and you can't tell anything about his future 
destiny until he passes this stage. Up to this time 
he is "Mamma's pet" and "Papa's boy," very smart, 
obedient and promising; and he is going to be a 
preacher, lawyer, doctor, engineer, or fireman, ac- 
cording to whatever strikes his fancy. He's never 
going to be bad nor run out o' nights; and the fond 
parent sees in him a saint or a president. He goes 
readily to school, to church and Sunday school, and 
will sit with his mother in the pew. He brings home 
tickets for good conduct, regular attendance and 
rapid progress in his studies; and if he is extraordi- 
nary, as he almost always is, he is the butt of ridi- 
cule and the object of persecution by all the larger 
boys. He's a "goody goody" tied to his mother's 
apron strings; and through this process of conflict 
and education he is finally prepared, as a rule, for 
his transition into the characteristic stage of the 
characteristic boy. 

After ten, and sometimes a little before, accord- 
ing to precocity or depravity, he enters the June 



(313) 



314 HARP OF LIFE. 

bug* state of existence fully developed; and from this 
point he begins to decline in goodness, smartness 
and obedience. He doesn't want to be smart or 
good; and he soon realizes that it does not comport 
with the dignity of boyhood to be obedient to super- 
iors. He must go with the boys, do like the boys 
and keep away from home, school and church unless 
it is necessary to find congenial company there; and 
even then it would be against his principles to learn 
anything or try to be good. He hasn't much use for 
Pa and Ma now except for good clothes, something to 
eat and a bed to go to about midnight; and he doesn't 
want breakfast next morning till about eleven 
o'clock. He cares only for Tom Runaway, Bill 
Breakneck and Sam Hawkeye; and, for the present, 
he cares nothing for the girls except to torment their 
lives out of them. Home is a bore unless it can be a 
place of mischief and deviltry; and about the only 
thing he dreads is the "old man's cowhide." As for 
the "old woman," he can put his finger in her eye and 
say it isn't there and she will agree with him, al- 
though she may have shed a bushel of tears over the 
young scapegrace on the early road to ruin. 

The habits of boys during this uncertain period 
are characteristic and peculiar. They go in ' 'gangs" 
and have a leader by instinct just as wolves, crows 
and other animals and birds do; and they have their 
signals or signs and passwords by which to indicate 
distress or to come together; and when the whistle 
blows or peculiar sounds are made, nothing but 
barred doors or windows can keep them apart, even 
at midnight. They mew like cats, bark like dogs, 
crow like roosters, bleat like sheep and neigh like 



THE GANG. 315 

horses; and anything- in the way of devilment a gang- 
together can't think of is not worth knowing. The 
Devil himself is the boss of a young gang; and the 
outcome of their growth in young villainy is but a 
demonstration of the doctrine of total depravity 
which they scarcely pretend to conceal. Old folks 
cover up their rascality, but boys openly let the cat 
of human nature out of the wallet. There is but 
one trick that mankind learns in practical depravity 
by degrees, and that is concealment. You can al- 
ways get at the character of the "old folks at home" 
by what the children do and say. There is one 
thing they are always unintentionally honest in, and 
that is to let you know what they are and how they 
do at home. 

Boys are very fond of fire as well as water; and 
they want the whole earth as well as all the air. It 
is remarkable to see a gang build a fire on the com- 
mon on a hot summer day and all sit around it and 
talk and seem to take great comfort in their intensi- 
fiedly warm surroundings; and it is not infrequently 
thus that the Lucifer match is suggested and ap- 
plied to the outhouse or the stable in the alley, just 
to see a bigger blaze and the fire engines come out. 
You will catch the gang anywhere about the dark 
corners, or in the allies, or down the railroad, or in 
the river; and among the amusements, day or night, 
is throwing stones, breaking glass, killing cats and 
chickens, stealing fruit and watermelons, robbing 
bird's nests or otherwise damaging and destroying 
whatever comes in their reach. Here they learn to 
swear, lie, curse, steal, fight, drink and commit mur- 
der; and the only thing that ever terrifies or scatters 



316 HARP OF LIFE. 

the gang- is the "Cop," as they call him. Sunday is, 
especially in the country, the great day for their 
g-athering- or their depredations upon farms, or- 
chards, isolated churches and schoolhouses and any 
other place where they can combine to do evil — tie a 
tin pan to your horse's or dog-'s tail, remove your 
g-ate or wag-on wheel, or roll a log across your road. 
Cruelty to animals, inhumanity in g-eneral, and a 
total disregard for the rig-hts of other people al- 
ways characterize the g-ang-'s lawless and g-odless 
career. 

There is one thing* about these boys, if you can 
only turn it to g-ood account, and that is, like all 
other wild animals, they are instinctively smart, if 
not smart in the way you want them; and if you 
know how to get at them you may tree and catch 
them just as you do rabbits and coons. Let them 
rnn into a hole like the fox that dodg-es you first with 
a score of tricks, and then you can g-et them if they 
do not get away from you. If ever you can g-et up 
with one of them once, win his attention and then 
g-et him interested with something g-ood, you may 
reach his heart. A pack of wolves will stop .and 
listen to a fiddle before they will eat you up; and so 
you may get at one of these boy's heads if you can 
only somewhere touch his heart. You needn't beg-in 
by flogging him, and keeping him in on Sunday, or 
by talking sense or religion to his head, after he has 
been trained in the gang. You must take him on the 
blind side of his inclinations and prejudices — steal 
unconsciously into his confidence — and then interest 
him in his way about your way. 

A friend and I, with a couple of skiffs and a couple 



THE GANG. 317 

of boys, once went a fishing* upon a lake. We 
caught fish, but the boys got tired and obstreperous 
and wanted to go home. We could do nothing- with 
them until we gave them one of the boats to go off 
to themselves and fish; and you never saw two boys 
more interested, energetic and delighted. How they 
caught fish, bragged, crowed, shouted and poked 
fun at us! After that you couldn't keep these boys 
away from us when we went fishing"; and just so it 
is in matters of business, pleasure, home, school or 
religion, if you would get one of these bad boys 
away from his gang- and out of his reckless course 
of life, you must get his confidence, touch his heart, 
and win his head along the line of his own way and 
upon the blind side of his own nature. In the Sun- 
day school especially do you have the best chance to 
fish for these bad boys; for generally they will go to 
Sunday school because others go there and because 
the exercises are interesting and best adapted to 
their age and instincts. It takes the sagacity, pa- 
tience, love and kindness of Paul who caught people 
by guile, and who was all things to all men that he 
might save some, to catch the gang, or a boy out of 
the gang; but it often proves the greatest catch that 
a fisher of men ever makes. 

One thing, however, must always be accomplished, 
if the bad boy is ever converted or kept in the path 
of rectitude: You must get him out of the gang 
and keep him out, or else get the whole gang con- 
verted. Even if you should get the whole gang 
there is danger. The Devil usually has one kid left 
among the lambs, and this little goat will play havoc 
for a while with the flock. At all events no boy can 



318 HARP OF LIFE. 

ever grow up and be a man in business, family, edu- 
cation, or religion, until he quits the Devil's gang 
and sticks to God's flock. The goats always try to 
get among the sheep; and if they can't do that they 
will try to draw the sheep off to herd with them. 
The goat invariably means mischief whether in the 
sheep fold, cr wandering alone, or in his gang; and 
when a poor young sheep gets off with him, or al- 
lows him in his company, the goat will get the ad- 
vantage every time. The sheep cannot go where the 
goat can without getting into trouble. The goat 
has a burr upon the bottom of his foot by which to 
climb fences, walk logs and go into by and forbidden 
places; and the poor, foolish sheep that tries to fol- 
low or keep company with him invariably comes to 
grief. The Devil understands this; and it is thus 
that young converts often appear worse after joining 
the Church than they did before. It is the hardest 
matter to keep Christian boys and girls in the right 
way; and the same plan of keeping them interested 
in religion after conversion is the same as getting 
them interested beforehand. You must let them 
have some kind of pleasure or work in their own 
way and along the line of their own ideas. You 
must let them fish a little in a boat by themselves, 
not far off, and under your eye and supervision in 
the Church. 

Alas! thousands of these boys continue as they 
have started in the gang. From ten to seventeen is 
the most dangerous period; and if a boy does not 
leave the gang before he is twenty-one, his destiny 
is usually fixed and his fate is sealed. After seven- 
teen the gang hardens into criminals. Most of the 



THE GANG. 319 

murders, thefts and other crimes of the day come 
from the gangs that you see about the drug stores, 
saloons and other lurking places in the city; and 
whenever a crime is committed and an arrest made 
you will find that the criminal had his "pals" and 
belonged to the older and more hardened gang that 
grew up from among the boys that first learned to 
herd together in mischief. Men are seldom alone in 
wickedness; and all the villainy of earth, nearly, 
originated in the gang. You seldom see an isolated 
bad boy; and what is true of the boy is true of the 
man. Whenever you look into a jail, or a peniten- 
tiary, or listen to the story of crime on the gallows, 
you will find, nine times out of ten, that bad com- 
pany was the original cause of it. Oh! boys, quit 
the gang, and quit it now! Don't wait to quit it by 
and by; for the longer you run with it the less prob- 
ability you will ever have of becoming disentangled 
from its chains of vice and villainy. Parents, 
preachers, and teachers, let us study especially the 
science and the art of getting the boys, and keeping 
the boys out of the gang. It would prove, if 
successful, the conversion of the world in which we 
live. 



Shooting Dead Ducks, 



TIN the picture before us we see a man shooting* 
-^ dead ducks in a pond when he might be shooting- 
live ducks in the air, and before they fly beyond the 
reach of his g*un. It seems a very foolish perfor- 
mance, and yet it is a folly of which we have all, and 
perhaps often, been g-uilty. 

The subject before us is but another phase of 
casting - pearls before swine, feeding* pig's on dia- 
monds, already treated in another sketch; but it in- 
volves something* more than that also useless per- 
formance. It implies all efforts where no g*ood can 
be accomplished; and it includes not only that class 
of persons who violently resist your attempts to do 
gfood, but all upon whom your words and activities 
fall without effect. There is no sense in talking* 
to, or working* with dead men, or dead things, ex- 
cept to bury them out of sig*ht. It is vain to sing* 
Psalms to the dead horse, or to shoot straws at the 
wind, or to whistle to a locomotive running* at the 
rate of forty miles an hour. We say a thousand 
thing's which are a waste of breath, and we do a 
thousand thing's which are a waste of energy, time 
and talent. Perhaps the saying* and doing* of useless 
thing's — the shooting* of dead ducks — may have some 
effect in developing* our faculties and functions; 
but we had better develop them in the wise and ef- 
fective work of doing* g*ood, where something* will be 
accomplished. 



(320) 



SHOOTING DEAD DUCKS. 323 

• The great difficulty is that we fight many a mock 
battle, shoot many a gun at random in the air and 
waste a magazine of ammunition. Like little boys 
among the crags, we are frequently shouting at the 
top of our voices, only to hear the echo, which is the 
only return of our eloquence. It does the voice good, 
I grant, but life is too short to be wasting eloquence 
upon echoes; and our voices, like our intellects and 
energies, would be better and more skillfully trained 
in doing good where effort will be fruitful. When 
the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia turned from the gos- 
pel and opposed the apostles, Paul and Barnabas 
dropped them and turned to the Gentiles; and here 
we learn the great lesson of letting useless effort go 
and of turning to something that will turn to good 
account without wasting further time and energy. 
When Jerusalem, over which Jesus wept with scald- 
ing tears for the last time, failed to recognize the 
day of her visitation, she was left to her desolation; 
and the Master turned to the work of saving the 
world which He came finally to redeem. When the 
sinner commits the unpardonable sin — passes, so to 
speak, the day of grace — God drops him forever. 
God and His Christ and apostles did not shoot at 
dead ducks. When Athens did not yield much fruit 
Paul went to Corinth; and there his mighty powers 
under God yielded the grandest work of his life in 
any given locality. Christ instructed His disciples, 
in some instances, not to preach the gospel in cer- 
tain cities inasmuch as He did not have much people 
there; and it would have been a waste of time to 
shoot at the dead ducks of Nazareth and Gadara 
after His rejection among these Peoples. 



324 HARP OF LIFE. 

Of course everything- that seems dead may not be 
a dead duck to be shot at in vain. As long- as there 
is life in a sinner, or a Church, or an enterprise, there 
is hope; but when hope is g-one then duck shooting- is 
useless. It is very hard to tell sometimes, when and 
where to stop; and often what seems a vain or hope- 
less effort only needs a few more words of love, a 
few more strokes of energy, and the work to be ac- 
complished is done. The duck is not always dead 
when he is at rest. The opossum plays the dead act 
to perfection when he is about to be caug-ht; and it is 
often so with the sinner — he is "playing- 'possum" 
when often on the very verg-e of salvation. In mat- 
ters of utility we must be very keen judges of men 
and circumstances; and then we must be so close to 
God that we may know His mind in the matter. 
Never g-ive up as dead or hopeless what God has not 
g-iven up; and in such a case we can only judge in 
the light of surroundings and indications coupled 
with the light of God's Word and the promptings of 
God's spirit. He who best knows God and His 
word is the discerner of spirits and of conditions in 
matters of religion; and the most successful Chris- 
tian is he who never gives up anything- till God g-ives 
it up. So Judson conquered Burmah after laboring- 
six years to g-et but one single convert. 

One thing- this sketch suggests with intense sig-- 
nificance and force: The dealing with living- instead 
of dead issues. Some people are like vultures, who 
live solely upon the carrion of dead things. They 
never forget the things behind and never reach out 
to the thing's before them; and hence they never deal 
with anything- but a dead issue. The war has been 



SHOOTING DEAD DUCKS. 325 

over and slavery has been abolished in this country 
since 1865; and yet there are men upon both sides of 
the conflict who have been digging* up the graves of 
our battle fields and waving- the "bloody shirt" for 
these thirty odd years. Prejudice almost always 
lives in the past — has its eyes in the back of its 
head — and can never see an inch in the future. It is 
cne grandchild of ignorance and the daughter of su- 
perstition; and what has been true politically with 
many people in this country for thirty years has al- 
ways been true with religious bigotry and fanati- 
cism. Persecution always emanated from a false 
and dead religion — behind the times; and what is 
true of religions, is true of all other persecution. In 
science, art, philosophy, discovery, invention, the 
man who gets ahead of his fellows has to pay the 
price of martyrdom. The man who shoots at dead 
ducks is a harmless fool; but the scene is shifted 
when Old Rip Van Winkle takes his stockless old 
rifle and shoots at live men and advanced issues. 
He is the universal impersonation of that long- 
eared ass who is always braying and kicking against 
human progress, when he himself is a dead duck at 
which nobody ought to shoot. 

There are, however, a number of ideas and issues 
called dead in religion which are not dead, and at 
which, by way of ludicrous anachronism, the dead 
ducks themselves are trying to shoot. How often 
do we hear of the "obsolete," the "exploded," the 
"antiquated" dogmas of Christianity! The Inspi- 
ration of the Bible, the incarnation of the Trinity, 
the Substitutional Atonement of Christ, Salvation by 
Grace, Miracles, Hell and like doctrines are set down 



326 HARP OF IvlFE. 

as dead issues; and a hundred different free lances are 
being- hurled at them. We are shot at as old fos- 
silized fogies who believe that Moses and Christ 
made no "mistakes;" but we have the exquisite sat- 
isfaction of knowing* that this old world has never 
yet g"ot up with the Ten Commandments nor come in 
sight of the Sermon on the Mount, except at the 
hands of old fashioned Christianity. Moses and Job 
and Daniel and Joseph and Hezekiah and Paul and 
Peter and John have no parallels in science, philoso- 
phy or statesmanship; and about the most obsolete 
men of modern times are the infidels and rationalists, 
whose works on science and religion explode every 
ten years and must be shifted to meet the ever vary- 
ing- shades of dissatisfied theory and speculation. 
The deadest ducks I know are Voltaire, Hume, 
Rousseau, Renan, Paine, Ing-ersoll, et id omne genus; 
and it is really pitiful, thoug-h shameful, to look 
upon that ragged batch of little wrinkled, pale-faced 
hags like Theosophy, Spiritism, Christian Science, 
Unitarianism and the like, sneaking- about and trying 
to stab the lofty genius of Orthodoxy in the back 
with their little half-truth dag'gers. I wish to say 
that after all a half-truth heresy is the most damna- 
ble and deceptive of all the religious delusions of the 
world. A merely human Christ is the most danger- 
ous fraud ever perpetrated on Christianity. 

We shoot a good deal at these dead ducks; but 
about the best thing to do is to preach and exem- 
plify that old-fashioned gospel of Christ. The life 
and example of the true Christian are the best ser- 
mon that was ever preached. Christian character 
is an unanswerable argument, especially when there 



SHOOTING DEAD DUCKS. 327 

is lots of it abroad in the world; and the great ob- 
stacle to our progress in the world is the dead duck 
that sits in so many pews or stands in so many pul- 
pits of our common Christianity. Of all the dead 
ducks in the Churches it is the anti-missionary dead 
duck — the do-nothing*, give-nothing-, say-nothing*, 
pray-nothing*, read-nothing* dead duck; and worse 
than all, it is that dead duck, and yet alive, which 
flops about in the saloon, the ball room, the theatre, 
the race track, the gambling* hell, the bucket shop, 
and in bad company and bad business all over the 
land. He is dead to Christ but alive to the Devil, 
and we often shoot at these do-nothing* and do-devil 
dead ducks in vain. They should get out of the 
Churches or do better; and if they will not roll out, 
or flop out, they ought to be shot out — the only kind 
of shooting that will do them or us any good. They 
won't die out to save your life, nor will they get far 
enough out of your way to do any good. Alas! it is 
always the live duck that dies, for a dead one can't 
die any deader, and he don't die the right way. 
Good Lord, have mercy on us for the bad sake of 
these dead ducks. 

Let me say that much of our controversy on all 
subjects — especially when not in the right spirit and 
manner — is nothing more than dead duck shooting. 
Again, there is no use in shooting at the fellow that 
scoffs you, or quibbles with you, or asks you fool's 
questions, or who promises you everything and never 
does anything; or who, like the clown's horse, is 
hard to catch, and when you catch him he is good 
for nothing. There, too, is the gospel hardened sin- 
ner who has been bombproof against the appeals of 



328 HARP OF LIFE. 

forty years; there is tHe prejudiced man, who, like a 
turtle, pulls his head in every time you touch his 
shell; there is the conceited fellow, who thinks he is 
condescending" to your ignorance every time you talk 
to him; there is the self-righteous Pharisee that 
thanks God he's better than you or any of yours; 
there is the "peculiar" specimen of humanity who 
will perhaps do better by being let alone; there is 
the hypocrite upon whom the gospel falls as water 
on the dead duck's back; there is that little coterie 
of intellectual folks in your congregation for whom 
you specially prepare your sermon to be heard, and 
in which you shoot above all the live ducks; oh, 
there's many a dead duck you need not shoot at at 
all. Only shoot at live ducks, Luke, or give up your 
gun. In a sense every lost sinner is dead — dead to 
God and alive to sin — but it is gospel shooting that 
kills him to sin and quickens him to God. We never 
know when the arrow we shoot goes to the mark of 
a broken heart; and it is our duty to shoot until 
shooting does no good. The Word of God is sharper 
than any two-edged sword. It is the power of God 
unto salvation to every believer — the savor of life 
to faith; and it only becomes the savor of death to 
persistent and final unbelief. The sinner has to 
doubly die before he becomes too dead to shoot at. 

I might say much more, but time fails me; and 
hoping these few lines will find their way to some of 
the dead ducks, I will draw my sketch to a con- 
clusion. 



Death in the Pot. 



ELJSHA came to Gilgal upon a certain occasion 
when there was a great dearth in the land of 
Israel. There was a kind of theological school 
there at the time, composed of "the sons of the 
prophets;" and as they were sitting- before Elisha, 
perhaps during" a session of instruction, he ordered 
his servant, Gehazi, I suppose, to "set on the great 
pot and seethe pottage for the sons of the prophets." 
In the meantime "one went out into the field" and 
gathered a lap full of coloquintida from a vine — 
called wild gourds — and shred them into the pot of 
pottage. He seemed not to know what these g*reen 
gourds were, taking them, no doubt, for some other 
vegetable; or else he must have thought the stomach 
of a poor, half fed theological student equal to any 
gastronomic emergency. If so, he was mistaken; 
for when the pottage was poured out to the boys and 
they began to eat, they cried out: "O man of God, 
death in the pot!" Elisha, however, was equal to 
ihe occasion; and above all the heads of the culinary 
department of any of our modern mess halls, he knew 
how to cure a bad dish and save the expense of 
throwing it away. He just took a hand full of meal 
and cast it into the pot and the bitter and poisonous 
pottage was made harmless and palatable, So he 
east salt into the alkaline spring at Jericho which 
became sweet; and in both instances it was the work 
of a miracle wrought of God. 

(331) 



332 HARP OF LIFE. 

After all, the theological students of EHsha's time 
had some advantages over the same class of students 
in our day. The old prophet could teach and per- 
form miracles too. He would make sweet the bad 
water the boys had to drink; render delicious the 
straightened economy of green gourds; and when the 
boys lost a borrowed axe in the Jordan he brought it 
to the surface with a stick. These students built 
their own house; and there were no large sums of 
money raised to erect and endow expensive colleges. 
The professor wasn't paid any salary; and it was 
not necessary for the boys to pay for tuition or 
board, since even in a drought and at the same time 
he instructed the boys, he not only transformed green 
gourds into palatable pottage, but fed a hundred 
men on twenty loaves of barley, brought by a man 
from Baal-shalisha. I judge, too that they had no 
library of any consequence except the Bible; and I 
shouldn't be surprised if those students could beat 
most of us preaching at this day. Our boys are not 
educated, housed and fed on that style now, and 
alas! if they should eat heartily of poisoned ice cream 
some Sunday they would have to send for the doctor 
of medicine instead of the doctor of divinity. Even 
the doctor might not be able to take death out of the 
pot. 

Morally speaking there was no death in the theo- 
logical pot, perhaps, out of which the students of 
Elisha ate, and this was another advantage of the 
sons of the prophets then over our day. The theo- 
logical pot of this generation — seething with the pot 
tage of many a poisonous error, is full of death; and it 
sits upon the fires kindled in some of our theological 



DEATH IN THE POT. 333 

schools. What is bad, if not worse, there is no 
Elisha to cast into it the curative meal of grace in 
order to heal the deadly dose which is administered 
to many of the students of this generation. We 
have, too, as many different theological pots as we 
have different kinds of pottage, green gourds, bitter 
and poisonous, and yet made sweet and palatable by 
the false Elishas who cover their false theology with 
the glamour and the gloss of fascinating* culture and 
infidelity. "Higher criticism" seems to be the 
freshest and greenest gourd of the times; and so of 
all the new and variegated theologies which are all 
green gourds because they are young gourds. Thou- 
sands cry out: "Death in the pot!" but thousands go 
on eating the pottage just the same, sweetened with 
the delusive meal of the learned and the great 
teachers. 

Thank God, into the conglomerated mess and 
mass of this theological pottage we have men and in- 
stitutions pouring the meal of salvation by grace 
through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; and in spite 
of a multitude of variant and heterogeneous heresies, 
a sinner ma}' be saved by the Gospel. In some in- 
stances, alas! there is no meal of grace in the pot, 
and thousands are eating the green gourd pottage of 
the Devil without mixture. In much that is eaten 
there is no room for God to over-rule the evil for 
good, and we behold on every hand the straight out 
victims of Spiritualism, Christian Science, falsely so- 
called, and a score of like falsehoods posing even 
under the name of Christianity. What a deadly pot 
is that in which bald ritualism seethes pottag-e. How 
deadlier still is that cauldron of damnation into 



334 HARP OF LIFE. 

which Ingersoll and Spencer and Huxley and the 
like cast the coloquintida of agnosticism, pantheism 
and atheism. In much that is seethed of this hell-broth 
pottage of error, falsehood and infidelity it is impos - 
sible for God or prophet to cast in the leaven of 
transformation. What an age and what a country 
is this! and yet how many pots of death are boiling 
with destruction to immortal souls kindled by the 
fires of learning and piety at the hands of blind 
leaders of the blind! "O man of God, death in the 
pot!" Up, up ye men of God in the schools and in 
the ministry and in the Churches, and cast in the 
meal of truth and grace and life into the seething 
mass of the Devil's pottage. 

''Death in the pot!" Well, there are a great many 
different kinds of pots in which there is death and 
from which men daily eat the pottage. * 'For one mess 
of pottage," and just this kind of pottage, morally 
speaking, Esau sold his birthright; and so thou- 
sands are making merchandise of immorality every- 
where for the gratification of appetite, passion, pride 
ambition and avarice. 

1. There is death in the wine cup when alcohol 
seethes the pottage of intoxication to drown the 
aspirations of the soul and to extinguish the torch of 
genius. There is scarcely even a ray of hope for the 
man who tampers with whiskey. I don't care how 
bad a young man is in all other respects, there is a 
chance for him if he will let liquor alone; and I don't 
care how good a young man may be in all other re- 
spects, there is no chance for him if he drinks from 
this cup of death. Every other vice can be cured 
easier than drunkenness; and then drunkenness is 



DEATH IN THE POT. 335 

the source and the fosterer of almost every other vice 
and crime in the world. Ten thousand devils glow 
and dance in the wine when it is red, when it giveth 
its color in the cup, and at the last stingeth like an 
adder and biteth like a serpent. 

2. There is death in the "poker pot," the symbol 
of the gambler's profession. Gambling is next to 
stealing and the lowest calling upon earth under the 
pretence of livelihood. It is getting something for 
nothing at the hazard of all you have, whether of 
money or manhood; and it is in the teeth of God's 
law, which says that man shall eat bread in the 
sweat of an honest face. The speculator in futures, 
the bucket shop loafer gets something for nothing or 
losses all he has; and often he corners the necessities 
of the poor to enrich the purse of a crime beside 
which the "poker pot" or the pool table is an inno- 
cent amusement. The cornerer deserves not only a 
corner in the penitentiary, but one of the hottest cor- 
ners in Hades 

3. There is death in the pot of lust — the licentious 
heart in which boils the passions which burn out 
manhood with debauchery. The very soul of some 
people seethe and stew down to a mess of putrid and 
and concentrated corruption in the perpetual indul- 
gence of libidinous dalliance and vice. I have seen 
some people out of whose eyes the light of virtue had 
faded, and which actually glowed with the baleful 
gleam of consuming depravity; and every lineament 
of purity had lost its trace in the vile countenance 
which even when it smiled wriggled with the cona- 
tions of turpitude. It is impossible to tell how low 
down in the scales of bestiality and pollution a man 



336 HARP OF LIFE. 

or woman may sink who feeds upon the rotten pot- 
tage that seethes in the boiling- cauldron of lust. 

4. There is death in the pot of every worldly pleas- 
ure. Alas! for the thousands who feast upon the 
mess that seethes in this pot and forget God — even 
in the Churches. You need not drink, nor gamble, 
nor lust, in order to be damned in unbelief. Just 
neglect or forget God in fun and your soul may 
dance off, or play over, or wing its flight upon the 
pinions of fancy into the bottomless pit. Immortal 
hope in the light of lost opportunity and careless in- 
difference is being extinguished every day in the ob- 
livious lure of godless amusement. People other- 
wise pure and good and useful to society and busi- 
ness, daily quaff this intoxicating draught, which, 
while it may not pollute the heart, crystallizes and 
hardens it with a deadly indisposition toward God — 
a revolting distaste to anything like a spiritual or 
crucial religion. 

5. There is death in the pot of avarice, pride, or 
ambition — the inordinate love of money, position, or 
fame. There are people who never indulge their 
animal passions or appetites — who care nothing for 
godless pleasures and amusements of life — whose 
god is not the God of Heaven, but whose god is 
money, or place, or honor. They want the earth 
either as a storehouse or treasure, or as a throne to 
sit upon, or an audience room to their praises. In 
business and profession, in politics and war, in 
science and art and literature, they are lost in the 
deification of self; and the sweetest cup ever drunk, 
the most delicious pottage they ever ate is the grati- 
fication of a yet insatiable pride and ambition which 



DEATH IN THE POT. 337 

never, never get enough of this world or its glory. 
"O man of God! death in the pot!" Alas! "if a man 
gain the whole world and lose his own soul what 
shall it profit him? or what shall a man give in ex- 
change for his soul?" 



Laziness* 



TT T is said that there was a man in a certain com- 
^ munity so lazy that his neighbors determined to 
take him to the grave-yard under pretense of bury- 
ing- him, in order to cure him of his malady. He in- 
dolently submitted to being put in a coffin and 
hauled away in a wagon towards the burial ground. 
On the way a neighbor observed the procession 
and inquired who was dead? "Nobody, replied the 
leader;" but we are going to bury Bill Jones because 
he is too lazy to work and support his family, which 
is upon starvation." "Why," said the generous 
neighbor, I will let him have a bushel of corn, if you 
will let him off." Bill Jones lazily lifted himself up 
in the coffin and asked: "Is it shelled?" "No," re- 
plied the neighbor. "Then drive on, boys," he said, 
and quietly laid back in the coffin. 

This is quite an extravagant old story, but it is a 
fine illustration of a lazy church member, or of the 
man too indolent or indifferent to be aroused about 
the interests of his own soul. Thousands are too 
lazy to work for the body, or the family. It may be 
that there are some who would rather die, or be 
buried alive, than to shell the corn when it is given 
to them to feed the fleshly appetite. Be that as it 
may, there is no lazier man than the indolent church 
member. He declines to shell God's corn when He 



LAZINESS. 341 

gives it to him. He is too lazy even to eat the bread, 
or drink the water of life when God puts it to his 
mouth. Not only does he refuse to work or give, 
but he takes no pleasure in reading- the Bible, and 
he has no disposition for prayer. To go to Church 
or Sunday school, or to prayer meeting-, is a task too 
heavy, a bore too deep, an enterprise too sleepy, 
with hundreds who are too lazy to say grace at the 
table. The lazy fellow who nailed the Lord's 
prayer to the head of his bed, and who, upon retiring-, 
was accustomed to say: "Lord, them's ?ny senti- 
ments" is a true picture of that multitude of 
wretches in the Churches who are too indolent to 
worship, much less serve, the living God in any 
form or fashion. They do hope to get to heaven and 
to escape hell; but if salvation by grace is to be 
manifested or evidenced by human exertion or ac- 
tivity, piety or zeal, then, "drive on, boys!" They 
might stand the car of Juggernaut, or lie down to it, 
but they can't endure the ordeal of active service to 
God. They not only want God to make timber for 
them, but they want Him to make lumber; and even 
when God has shelled the corn of grace to them, 
they want Him to make meal and bake bread. 

These people are not necessarily indolent, or lazy 
about anything else. Earnest, zealous and active in 
business, hearty and hale in appetite, sound and 
sonorous in sleep, vigorous in fun and frolic, yet in 
religion they are heartless sluggards ever folding 
their arms in languor and crying for a "little more 
slumber." They feast upon God's earthly boun- 
ties, roll and wallow in God's earthly bed, luxuriate 
in God's sunshine and dew and fatness, but they are 



342 HARP OF L,IFE. 

too lazy to open their mouths in God's worship, or 
lift their hands in God's service, or drag* their feet to 
where they might draw some benefit or blessing 
from the example and devotion of others. The 
House of God gets to be a place of torture to the 
lazy Christian. 

Laziness is one of the prominent sins of the Bible, 
and God has pronounced a curse upon it. "Woe 
unto them that are at ease in Zion!" Indolence is 
the paralysis of the soul — a curse within itself — and 
it is one of the hereditary forms of sin essential to 
human nature. He that indulges it destroys every 
good principle of his being; and he that overcomes 
it will not only be able to conquer every other sin, 
but to develop and make triumphant every grace 
and ennobling principle in his moral constitution. 
Laziness is the sleep of mind, not simply of the body; 
and hence God appeals to the soul when he warns 
the sluggard to "go to the ant, consider her ways and 
be wise." No wonder then that, in the Church, God 
pronounced a woe, objective as well as subjective, 
upon such a sin, since it is the mother of stupidity, in- 
capacity and vice. The idle brain in religion is the 
Devil's workshop; and as in every other place, so in 
the Church, the Devil will be sure to find something 
for idle hands to do. Laziness in religion does not 
mean laziness in sin; for, not only is religious indo- 
lence a sin by negation to God, but it usually turns 
to devilment in the life of the Christian or the 
Church. A lazy Church is the Devil's storehouse, 
his laboratory, his arsenal of evil; and in such a 
Church may be found all the elements of vice and 
conflict sooner or later developed. Hence God's only 



EASINESS. 343 

punishment and cure often of such a Church is division 
and strife, permitted in order to bring back life and 
Seal. Stagnation in Zion is like stagnation in the at- 
mosphere; and the physical cyclone which cures the 
latter is but the figure of the moral cyclone which 
must cure the former. 

It is sometimes amusing to be at a religious con- 
vocation when the Churches are represented and 
where reports are made of Church progress. The 
letters often include the expression: "We are at 
-peace with one another;" and then the statistical 
table of the little dying band is read, as follows: 
"Baptized none, excluded none, died one; received 
none by letter, dismissed five." With regard to 
benevolence, missions and education the report 
reads: "Fifty cents for minutes, forty cents for 
missions," and nothing for anything else, except that, 
for the individual expense bill of the surviving mem- 
bership, there might have been reported several 
thousand dollars worth of pork, beef, chickens, pies, 
tobacco, snuff and corn juice! But they are at 
"peace" for which they thank God and congratulate 
themselves, the same as being thankful and self- 
gratulatory for stagnation and death in the Church. 
The Ship of Zion here is like the vessel discovered in 
the Polar Sea. The captain, mate, steward, purser, 
pilot, crew and passengers were all on board and at 
their places — looking quite natural and easy — but 
they are all frozen to death; and so it is in many a 
Church "at ease in Zion" — dead preacher in the pul- 
pit, dead deacons in the Amen corner, dead member- 
ship in the pews! No Sunday school, no prayer 
meeting, no contribution to missions, no work for 



344 • HARP OF LIFE. 

souls; and the lazy preacher stands in the pulpit to 
feed the lazy "little flock" on husks. Some of them 
are congratulating the sheep that they are a "little 
flock" to whom alone the kingdom belongs, as if Jesus 
had never intended that His once "little flock" 
should be any bigger than the original twelve apos- 
tles. Laziness and hardshellism are synonymous 
terms. 

A preacher of the "primitive" type said, not long 
since: "They accuse us of sitting upon the 'stool of 
do-nothing. ' True, ' ' he said , ' 'but it's a mighty good 
stool. It never tilts over. It has three legs for its 
support, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost;" 
and so this antiquated old fossil thought he had made 
a splendid argument, by a false analogy, in establish- 
ing the doctrine that God is able to help himself, and 
that it is a dishonor to God and the doctrine of pre- 
destination to presume to make any effort to aid the 
cause of Christ beyond feeding the sheep upon the 
dry grass of fatalistic preaching. Be it known that 
the Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, is not 
the three legged "stool of do-nothing." God cries 
out to His people everywhere, and in all ages: 
"Come up to the help of the Lord, against the 
mighty." He confers upon His people the great 
honor, and lays upon them the sacred duty of 
sharing with Christ in the sublime co-operation of 
saving a perishing world. 

There is one sin which makes even God sick. It 
is lukewarmness — the sin of the Laodicean Church. 
"I would thou wert either cold or hot," he said to 
this Church; and because they were "lukewarm," 
"neither cold nor hot," he said: "I will spew thee 



LAZINESS. 345 

out of my mouth." This was a large and flourishing- 
Church, that is, "rich, and increased in goods, hav- 
ing need of nothing," in its own estimation; but 
spiritually it was "wretched and miserable and poor 
and blind and naked" as it rolled and fattened in 
the luxury of laziness and indifference. It was one 
of our fine, wealthy, fashionable, worldly, popular 
Churches — active and zealous in its own glorifica- 
tion and pretentions, but cold and dead in the frigid 
grasp of religious pride, indolence and stupidity — 
full of society and flirtation with the world and 
given over to formalism and display in the name of 
Christ. It vomited the Almighty! It was like 
taking tepid water on the stomach. It nauseated 
God! We can drink hot or cold water, but we can't 
keep down a draught of lukewarm water. It's as 
bad as ipecac. The figure here employed illustrates 
God's loathing and disgust of a proud but spiritually 
dead Church — a people at ease in Zion — doating 
upon their splendor in laziness and indifference, feel- 
ing no need of anything at God's hands, and abso- 
lutely regardless of the poor and the needy cause of 
the Redeemer, except perhaps by proxy. Ah! how 
God spews out of His mouth such Churches in this 
world! Alas! if not now and here, what a vomiting 
of such will there be at the judgment seat of Christ! 
Oh! big money and broad culture, silk and satin, pride 
and ambition, social display and high position, 
stained glass and cushioned pews, how often have 
ye killed the meekness and humility of God's House! 
How often filled it with the mimicry of mockery in 
worship! How often degenerated into the "ease of 



346 HARP OF LIFE 

Zion" and died of spiritual indolence and enmci, "in* 
occuous desuetude!" 

God has no use for a lazy man or Church; and 
neither has the Devil when he cannot make any ac- 
tive or practical use of them. The Devil may toler- 
ate such upon the principle that negation to God is 
positive service to him in the end; but such are not 
the Devil's highest ideals, so long* as they are not in 
a state of actual devilment. His diabolical majesty 
must feel a contempt for anything" too lazy to be of 
active service; and we have seen with what disgust 
God holds such men and Churches. Both God and 
Satan are active. God and good were impersonated 
and incarnated in the sacrificial activity and zeal and 
sympathy of Christ who was ever "about" and "do- 
ing-good;" and all of God's true people and Churches 
have been characterized by the terms "peculiar" 
and "zealous." So, by contrast, of the Devil and 
his people ever in active conflict with God and good. 
The Devil and his own never slumber nor sleep; and 
the saloon and the brothel and the game table and 
the race track and the pleasure resort — the theatre, 
the club room, the dance hall and the like — never 
close doors or take vacations except when compelled. 
If the forces of good ever relax, the forces of evil 
never stop; and though Satan and his agencies fail 
under a thousand forms of evil, they assume a thou- 
sand other forms as fast as they fail. God in crea- 
tion, providence and grace — in earth and heaven, and 
among all that multitudinous host of unseen intelli- 
gences at work for good — never stops; and the most 
marvelous phenomenon in the science and philosophy 
of religion — the most unaccountable — is a lazy Church 



LAZINESS. 347 

or Christian which declines to co-operate in the 
harmony and glory of divine activity, or who retards 
the sublime progress of divine work. How sad it is 
that the virgins, wise or foolish, ever sleep! How 
strange that the disciples slept at the gate of 
Gethsemene! Thank God, however, that there are 
the faithful in God's ranks who never stop; and 
thank God for the consolation that He who never 
sleeps nor slumbers shall not fail of His purpose 
against death, hell and the grave; and that He shall 
bring off His cause and His people more than con- 
querers through Christ who loves us and will keep 
us to the end. 

There will be no laziness in heaven; and it is 
doubtful if any lazy man will ever go there. There 
will be no laziness in hell; and although the lazy 
man will get there, he will wake up to his hot recep- 
tion and to a superinduced activity never realized be- 
fore. There will be neither time nor place for lazi- 
ness in Paradise or Tartarus; for on the one hand, 
heaven is a place of worship and service, night and 
day, forever; while on the other, hell is character- 
ized as a place of torment, of cursing and weeping 
and wailing and of gnashing of teeth at God, day and 
night forever. I have heard of people too lazy and 
worthless to live— misfit for heaven and * 'not worth 
their room in perdition" — but this is a mistake so far 
as hell is concerned. If Satan has not been able to 
rouse up and use a lazy fellow in this world, he 
knows how to warm and wake him up and put him to 
activity in that country adapted to the purpose, where 
the climate is sulphurous but not soporific, and where 
a fiery energy is normal if not voluntary. Hell is 



348 HARP OF LIFE. 

the punishment of that laziness which could not be 
cured even by grace, in this world; and if the lazy 
man ever gets there he will soon realize that while 
it is no place for a lazy man it is the place where 
laziness alone can be cured. May the lazy wake up 
now and go to work for God, and keep out of the 
lazy man's fiery and eternal infirmary. 





HONEST SWEAT. 



Honest Sweat* 



^HE old law of labor, like all the laws of God, 
-^ has never been abrogated. It reads thus: "In 
the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." Of 
course, by the word "sweat" is meant honest per- 
spiration. Since the enactment of this old law great 
changes have taken place in the realm of labor. 
Begging, gambling-, lying, cheating, bloodshed for 
plunder have characterized the business and practi- 
cal career of mankind. Men sweat for a thousand 
different reasons — for vice as well as for virtue, for 
rascality as well as for honesty — and hence the word 
"sweat" needs a specific definition. The burglar, 
the safe blower, the gambler, the thief, the drunk- 
ard and the liquor dealer all sweat. The guilty 
conscience, as well as the good conscience, makes a 
fellow sweat. A fellow sweats in the meshes of the 
law for evil as well as in the walks of piety for 
good; and it may be that the Devil sweats in his 
devilment as well as that Christ sweat great 
drops of blood amid the agonies and toils of redeem- 
ing love. 

Sweat, however, was the curse put upon honest 
labor. If Adam had not fallen, perhaps he would 
not have had to sweat. There will be no sweat in 
heaven, where toil will be luxury and service bliss; 
and it is possible that in the Garden of Eden labor 
would have been without perspiration or tears in the 

(351) 



352 HARP OF LIFE. 

holy culture of that beautiful, genial place. To 
evil, however, sweat is not only the exhaustion of 
strength, but of virtue; but to the toil of honesty 
sweat is the tonic of manhood and purity. The hap- 
piest and best man in the world is the man who 
labors righteously, who rests when he should, and 
who eats his bread in the sweat of an honest face; 
and that face is the sunniest and noblest that ever 
coruscates with the aureole of purity and dignity 
among men. The mastery of self and sin is found 
only in the man who labors for God and for good. 

There are several kinds of people in the world 
who work and sweat and who don't work and 
sweat: 

1. There are those who do nothing and produce 
nothing. Ex nihilo nihil fit — nothing from nothing 
comes. The idler, the bummer, the lounger, the 
"dead beat," the good-for-nothing sluggard whom 
the Bible admonishes to visit the ant hill to learn 
wisdom, does nothing and sweats nothing to get 
nothing. He hasn't life and energy enough to sweat; 
and where there is no sweat there is no income. 
Such a man has no right to eat bread, according to 
the apostle Paul, who says we shall be "diligent in 
business," as well- as "fervent in spirit, serving the 
Lord;" and he further declares that he who "pro- 
vides not for his own household hath denied the faith 
and is worse than an infidel." Hence such a man is 
unfit for earth and misfit for heaven; and the vagrant 
law is the only one to which he is subject. Any 
man in good times ought to be put in the peniten- 
tiary, in a country like this, who does not follow an 
honest vocation and make an honest living; and I be- 



HONEST SWEAT. 353 

lieve that laziness should be regarded as a crime by 
negation, especially when a man does not provide for 
his own. No human being, able to work, should be 
allowed to beg or lounge about the streets or enter 
an institution of charity; and it should be held as a 
crime against society for such a man or woman to be 
harbored in saloons, gambling hells and brothels — 
punishable by the laws of our country. No human 
being has a right to become a parasite upon so- 
ciety — a louse to feed upon another man's head — 
much less to become a leprous infection on the body 
politic. 

2. There are those who do worse than nothing to 
get something from others. Those who live by 
means of the brothel, the saloon, the game table, the 
bucket shop, by all sorts of respectable thievery, to 
say nothing of the lower orders of robbery, are they 
who come under this head. These, if they sweat at 
all, sweat dishonestly in the business of getting 
something for nothing. The beer glass or the 
whiskey bottle, which takes the laborer's honest 
nickel, is a non-productive consumption of money, 
mind and morals and a pauperizer of the masses; 
and it is the same as * 'blood money" when it becomes 
robbery of women and children and the misery and 
damnation of countless thousands of souls. So of 
every dollar gained and lost upon the indulgence of 
lust or gambling or futures speculation, where the 
honest sweat of productive labor, or business, never 
sanctifies a dollar put into the pocket, and where one 
man is robbed to enrich another. Legitimate busi- 
iness or labor mutually benefits the buyer and the 
seller, the employer and employee, both parties 



354 HARP OF IylFE. 

to the transaction; but in all species of gambling-, or 
merchandise, or labor, where nothing- is produced, 
only one party can be benefited while the other is 
robbed. 

It does not signify anything- good that in such 
transactions men tacitly agree to rob or be robbed, 
to debauch and be debauched, to ruin and be ruined. 
Mutual consent to suffer evil cannot abrogate moral 
law, and no civil government should allow men to 
harm each other by consent. Every man should be 
not only required to make an honest living in the 
sweat of an honest face, but no man or woman 
should be allowed to engage in any form of liveli- 
hood in which they produce nothing, or do worse 
than nothing, to make a living. If vagrancy is a 
crime, what must be said of living not only at the 
expense of other people, but at the expense of every 
principle which underlies the fabric of domestic, so- 
cial and civil economy? Alas ! for the glory of the age 
in which we live when the brothel, the saloon, the 
bucket shop, the pool room, gambling of any kind, 
any sort of labor, business or operation which en- 
riches or benefits one man and robs and demoralizes 
another and debauches both, is not only allowed, but 
licensed and legalized. 

3. There are those who legitimately do something 
to get something, who develop a productive produc- 
tion, who, in the sweat of an honest face, make an 
honest living. I refer now to a large and varied 
class of producers, creators and conservators of so- 
ciety, the agriculturist, the mechanic, the trades- 
man, the operator, the contractor and the laborer; 
and under this head may be arrayed every form of 



HONEST SWEAT. 355 

business, profession and administration, the mer- 
chant and the manufacturer, the discoverer and the 
inventor, the lawyer, doctor, editor, educator, preach- 
er and writer, the law maker and the executor of the 
law, all who labor in the sweat of an honest face not 
only to make a living, but to mutually benefit and 
bless their fellow-men in the production of that 
which is necessary to the existence and good of so- 
ciety. Here labor is honorable, the outcome legiti- 
mate, and without evil except as accidental and in- 
cidental to human ignorance, or weakness, and not 
inherent in the idea of producing nothing to get 
something or of doing worse than nothing to get 
what we are not entitled to. 

But honest labor intensifies the sweating process 
when man ceases to be isolated and enters into the 
co-operative movements or enterprises which bring 
capital and labor into conflict. The two never seem 
to agree long at a time; and there seems to be no 
scientific solution to the problems which are involved 
in the periodical embroglios into which they are per- 
petually plunged. It seems that the man who 
chiefly works with his head and the man who works 
chiefly with his hands can never understand each 
other; and one diificulty in the way is selfishness, 
which takes shape in the "love of money, " which is 
"the root of all evil," and which is chiefly lodged in 
the heart of the capitalist. He does the thinking, 
but he thinks mostly in the direction of his own in- 
terests; and the poor fellow who works chiefly with 
his hands has to take it out in striking. These im- 
mense monopolies, combines and trusts, which are 
among the billionaire developments of our day, have 



356 HARP OF LIFE. 

not thought for the laborer nor done for him as they 
would have the laborer think and do for them; and 
hence the universal labor organizations and monster 
demonstrations which now characterize our time. 
Organization has to be met with organization; and 
fortunately for the laborer he has reached a day 
when universal education and information furnish 
him with the weapons of his defense. He is learn- 
ing more and more to think for himself as well as 
sweat for himself; and if he will keep far away from 
socialism and anarchy and have as little to do with 
politics as possible (except at the ballot box) he will 
always be able to stand abreast with the colossal 
maneuvering of capital and combination. 

Honest sweat should glow with religion. Jesus 
Christ is the laborer's friend. He was himself a 
carpenter. He not only sweat the honest drops of 
toil, but the bloody drops of sorrow and sympathy for 
the sinner, the oppressed and the poor; and his deep- 
est curse rests upon the prostitution of capital which 
robs the laborer of his hire. Liberty and equality 
are the social and political outcome of the cross; and 
a wise and righteous regard for law and order, a 
vigilant and energetic exercise of the right of suf- 
frage, with an intelligent and honest course of con- 
duct, will keep the laborer's cause secure in a coun- 
try like this. While the capitalist is lobbying with 
the Legislatures, let the laborer be sure to keep the 
ballot box under his control; and let him remember 
that the age in which he lives tenders him the sym- 
pathies and the assistance of the religionist, the phi- 
losopher and the philanthropist everywhere. Let 
capital learn to sweat honestly as well as labor; and 



HONEST SWEAT. 357 

let labor never mingle the blood of violence with the 
perspiration of an honest face. Let both follow the 
golden rule; and with the modern advantages of ed- 
ucation and organization, sanctified by religion and 
ruled by common sense, labor need never fear the 
supremacy of capital which hitherto has always 
ruled the world. Stick to honesty, religion and the 
ballot box. 




Ignorance, Prejudice, Bigotry < 



w : 



E here picture three characters inseparably re- 
lated to each other and following- each other 
in the sequence of a natural offspring- — Ig-norance, 
Prejudice, Bigotry! Ignorance is the mother, of 
prejudice and the grandmother of bigotry — the only 
son of the only daug-hter of the only mother that ever 
g-ives birth to such a prog-eny. The old g-randmother 
leads the way in mental and moral blindness; the 
daughter follows after with a somber scowl and 
with a snub-nose contempt for all she disagrees 
with; and her son cleaves the wake with persecu- 
tion, his foot against everything which crosses his 
path. Bigotry is the effect of a two-fold cause, the 
active result of two blended principles inherent in a 
common blood and stock — -the child of prejudice born 
of ignorance; and most of the injustice and cruelty, 
and persecutions, which have made this old world 
weep in streams of blood, sprang from the gory 
hand of bigotry. Science and art, religion and lib- 
erty, righteousness and innocence, all have gone 
from scaffold to scaffold and from stake to stake at 
the instance of this hideous monster, armed with 
authority and wielding the sword of power. Espe- 
cially have men had to suffer at his hands for reli- 
gious convictions, a sphere in which he is most in- 
clined to dogmatism and despotism, and yet a sphere 
in which moral certainty, in all points is least at- 

(358) 




IGNORANCE, PREJUDICE, BIGOTRY. 



IGNORANCE, PREJUDICE, BIGOTRY. 361 

tainable; Worse than all, his cruelty has been dis- 
played in "non-essentials" based upon human tradi- 
tion, the badge and countersign of priestcraft, and 
the fiercest weapon ever put into the hands of king- 
craft. 

Bigotry has always dominated the world in that 
which was based upon ignorance and prejudice. 
Galileo recanted under the scepter of ignorance and 
prejudice which dogmatized his system, in the very 
light of a revolving universe, into heresy; and so 
through all the centuries has the progress of truth 
and freedom been obstructed by opposition born of 
darkness and hate towards everything that did not 
conform to the standard of error and falsehood en- 
acted for every subject in every period of human 
history. No man ever got ahead of his day that did 
not pay the penalty of crucifixion for his originality. 
Slavery is averse to the sacrifice essential to liberty; 
and the master of serfdom seldom ever saw the light 
of freedom through the glamour of his power and 
the haze of self-interest in the property of even hu- 
man chattels. Ignorance blinded by prejudice never 
desires to be enlightened amid the darkness of pet 
superstitions; and truth has never yet had to fight a 
battle except against the armed supremacy and dom- 
ination of bigotry and persecution, born of ignorance 
and prejudice. Ambition, the pride of wealth and 
the love of power, originated the doctrines and the 
machinery of kingcraft and priestcraft, of slavery 
and subjugation; and in the beclouded atmosphere 
of these awful heresies against light and freedom, 
were born all the weird and hideous superstitions 
of ignorance and prejudice which have cursed the 

24 



362 HARP OF LIFE. 

world under the blighting- rod of bigotry and per- 
secution. 

Christ was the great Liberator and Enlightener; 
and yet he paid the penalty of the cross at the hands 
of Jewish envy and Gentile ignorance. Moses be- 
fore him emancipated Israel from the slavery of 
Egypt, and yet he would have been immolated upon 
the altar of persecution no less by the blindness and 
madness of Pharaoh than by the slavish stupidity 
of Israel, who, in the face of a remorseless bondage 
of "bricks without straw," would have stoned their 
leader for the gluttony of "leeks and onions" rather 
than endure the sacrifice of light and liberty. Oh, 
what w 7 ould history since have been but for such 
men as Luther and Knox and Roger Williams — such 
men as Tell, Bruce and Washington — such men as 
Galileo, Harvey and Fulton — a host of such who 
have explored the heavens, fathomed the seas, 
probed the earth; discovered, invented, created, rev- 
olutionized, and upheaved the centuries and plowed 
their way through tears and blood to the glory of 
modern civilization! The blackest page in history 
— the most incongruous and inconsistent commen- 
tary upon the blindness and cruelty of human nat- 
ure — is that w^hich records bigotry and persecution 
in the name of Christ! The ten persecutions of 
Pagan Rome, under the malignity and blindness of 
idolatrous superstition, consign Nero and Domitian 
and Decius and Valerian and Diocletian and other 
emperors to the most infamous record of perfidy ever 
created by the abuse of power in the cruel days of 
ancient history; but all their monstrosities of inno- 
cent blood-letting are eclipsed in the awful shadows 



IGNORANCE, PREJUDICE, BIGOTRY. 363 

of the inquisition of Spain, Italy and Portugal, the 
war of extermination against the Vaudois, the horrid 
massacres of France and the Netherlands, and the 
lurid fires of Smithfield. Bigotry, born of ignorance 
and prejudice, did it all; and while these awful 
charges are laid at the door of Pagan and Papal 
Rome, it is no less true and astounding that, in al- 
most every country — even upon the free and virgin 
soil of America — some forms of Protestantism were 
once guided by the same spirit into the transaction 
of the same iniquities and atrocities. 

Ignorance does not always consist in a lack of in- 
formation and education, and seldom does it exist 
for the lack of chance at information and education. 
She is subject to fanaticism and zeal without knowl- 
edge when she might know better; and often she is 
willfully and persistently ignorant against light. 
There is no source of ignorance so profound, incura- 
ble and dangerous as that which grows out of tra- 
ditional bias and culture; and early training on this 
line is seldom, if ever, overcome. After thousands 
of years of progress there are some whole nations 
to-day, to say nothing of individuals and churches, 
which are crystalized and barnacled all over with 
old effete social, religious and political ideas that 
should have died with the feudal and the dark ages. 
In the very blaze of the nineteenth century a thou- 
sand millions of heathens are in moral darkness; and 
hundreds of millions of nominal Christians still cling 
to the prejudices and cherish the spirit of a perse- 
cuting bigotry which belong to the benighted cen- 
turies of religious intolerance and cruelty. Tradi- 
tion, and not the truth, is at the bottom of it; and 



364 HARP OF LIFE. 

what is true from the standpoint of the ancient and 
hoar} T sources of bias and prejudice, in this respect, 
is true of all denominational sm, to a degree, how- 
ever novel and young - . Thousands of people are 
enthusiastic and zealous bigots in systems of relig- 
ion not a century old; and they are bound to their 
systems far more closely by family tradition and de- 
nominational pride than from any intelligent convic- 
tions in the matter. Thank God, the sword of big- 
otry is sheathed and un wielded; but in thousands 
of cases it swing's at the side of prejudice and is 
often brandished in the hands of inexcusable and 
culpable ignorance. 

Not only so, but bigotry is not infrequent among 
those of us who, with an open Bible, make a full 
claim to having all the truth and liberty. Such 
bigotry does not arise from traditional ignorance 
and bias, but from partisan zeal based upon a preju- 
dice born of that ignorance which will not see any 
good in others, and which is never able to see but 
one side of a question however studied. It is the 
result of controversial specialism, which is not only 
narrow and one-sided, but often full of ambition and 
self-seeking. It is mostly found in denominational 
leaders who wrap themselves up in the flag of a few 
denominational peculiarities and go about daring 
everybody to shoot at that flag; and their chief glory 
seems to be in creating a following, in winning noto- 
riety and in selling their wares for profit among the 
more ignorant and unlearned of their brethren. The 
chief effect they produce in the churches is to make 
denominational game cocks; and they dry up the 
spirit of piety, missions, education and of denomina- 



IGNORANCE, PREJUDICE, BIGOTRY. 365 

tional enterprise. Their religious conventicles are 
theological debating societies; and occasionally they 
send up fifty cents for Foreign Missions! Like 
priest, like people; and you see the partisan touch 
of the leader in the sterile spirit and practice of a 
partisan people who will not recognize a man cast- 
ing* out devils unless he follows with them. These 
people only sneeze when their leaders take snuff; and 
their theological cast is only found in the mould of 
their denominational master. In fact, they inter- 
pret the Bible and Christianity only after his like- 
ness and image; and he is the denominational "cock 
of the walk" in all the realm of his territory. 

It is the part of Christian manhood to hold con- 
victions and to have the courage of them; but these 
convictions should be intelligently formed, prayer- 
fully matured and charitably promulgated . However 
boldly we defend the faith, or assail error and false- 
hood, we should be sure to free our minds of all 
prejudice and bigotry. Let us recognize truth and 
righteousness wherever found. So far as we can 
agree with good people who differ from us, let us 
walk together with them; and where we disagree 
with them let us walk apart from them. Wherever 
I find the true and the good among God's people 
predominate over the false and the bad, I fellowship 
them; and wherever I find the false and the bad among 
them predominate over the true and the good, I refuse 
them recognition . At the same time I try to remember 
that those whom I so judge and discriminate against, 
have the same right to so judge and discriminate 
against me; and I try to remember that, however 
wise. and good the best of us are, we are infinitely 



366 HARP OF IvlFK. 

short of perfection in wisdom and goodness. It is 
simply marvelous that men who know a hundred 
times as much as I, and are so much better than I, 
should differ with each other upon points which 
seem so plain to me; and I often come to the conclu- 
sion that I should tread humbly and cautiously, 
after all, upon ground where giants wrestle. In 
fact, I differ widely with those much more learned 
and pious than myself; and hence, while I earnestly 
and strenuously contend for the truth as I under- 
stand it, I feel tremblingly charitable towards those 
with whom I am in conflict. My ignorance, thank 
God, I know; and hence, I think I feel no prejudice. 
I may be deceived, but I am satisfied if I have any 
bigotry in my heart, I do not know it. 

Let us all beware of bigotry; and let us remember 
the only way to kill it is to know and cure our igno- 
rance, and to open the artery of prejudice in our 
bodies and let the dull, heavy blood drop out of it. 
There are all sorts of bigots — social, political, scien- 
tific, artistic, financial, literary, business and pro- 
fessional bigots — and often the man who boasts of 
having the least of it, has the most of it. The tra- 
ditions of science, art, literature, infidelity and the 
like, are no less deeply grounded in bias and preju- 
dice than those of religion; and not infrequently the 
worst form of ignorance out of which all prejudice 
and bigotry spring is learned ignorance, cultivated 
ignorance, refined ignorance, infidel ignorance! The 
biggest fool in the world is the atheist, the ration- 
alist, the socialist; and with all their boasts of free 
thought, intelligence, liberty, they are the most 
prejudiced, intolerant, and bigoted set in the world. 



IGNORANCE, PREJUDICE, BIGOTRY. 367 

The French Revolution demonstrated that liberty 
run riot and God ignored could excel the bigotry 
of false religion in the excesses of the wildest and 
maddest fanaticism and cruelty that ever blighted 
the world. Nothing but the conservative spirit can 
ever avoid bigotry. The extremes of radicalism and 
liberalism always meet in the like curses of despo- 
tism and anarchy, and prejudice and bigotry are the 
dominating spirit born of ignorance, and character- 
istic of both. Jesus alone knew nothing of this 
spirit. Love was the talisman of His power and the 
badge of His glory; and the golden rule is the only 
cure for human intolerance. 



Stinginess* 



A MONG the sins of God's people, to say nothing 
^-^ of the Devil's folks, stinginess is the meanest 
and most unprofitable. One of the best illustrations 
of this crime against God and humanity is a dream 
I once heard. A man dreamed that he had died and 
gone to the gate of Heaven. As he approached the 
Heavenly entrance he found an old neighbor, a mem- 
ber of the church of his community, and noted for 
his penuriousness, in waiting. The dreamer asked: 
* 'What are you waiting for?' ' ' 'Waiting for a club, ' ' 
replied his old neighbor. "And why are you wait- 
ing for a club?" asked the dreamer again. "Why," 
said the old man; "The entrance fee here for single 
individuals is fifty cents, or twenty-five cents a 
head in clubs of six, and so I am waiting to make up 
a club." 

Of course it was only a dream, but this dream is 
founded in the reality of much of the so-called giving 
of many of the so-called Christians we know. The 
liberality of thousands never goes beyond the grudg- 
ing pittance paid as a sort of entrance fee into the 
Kingdom of Heaven; and the giver is always ready 
to commute the rates, if not dodge the fee altogether. 
Many of them would wait for club rates, if the fee 
of entrance was really fifty cents. Some give from 
a sheer sense of duty — others give under the pressure 



(368) 







STINGINKSS. 



STINGINESS. 371 

of public sentiment, and hate to do it beforehand — 
others give under the impulse of occasion and appeal 
and regret it afterwards — others give for their own 
glory and get their only reward here — few give from 
love to God and good to man. The freewill offer- 
ing, according to ability is a rare and gracious act of 
divine worship. It all comes from stinginess and 
want of early training. 

I never could comprehend stinginess, or a stingy 
man — much less a stingy Christian. I have heard of 
men who would steal oats from their own horses, 
after feeding them, or who would spit in their own 
fire, in order to economize coal. I have known some 
rich people too stingy to eat heartily; and of one it 
is said that he used the wart on the back of his neck 
for a collar button, as a matter of economy. We 
have all heard of those "as close as the bark on a 
hickory tree," or who would "skin a flee for his hide 
and tallow," or who would "squeeze a dollar until 
the eagle would scream." Selfishness is like the 
Dead Sea into which everything runs, but from 
which nothing runs out; and I have observed a great 
many people whose sole object seemed to be to get 
everything out of everybody else, and to give noth- 
ing back. This is bad enough in worldly people 
whose sole god is the ' 'Mammon of Unrighteousness;" 
but stinginess in a Christian is beyond the reach of 
imagination. How any man can believe in Christ 
who "loved us" and "gave Himself" for us, and who 
will "freely give us all things," and yet be selfish 
and penurious with God is inexplicable. I had rather 
be a hog and grunt out a life of mudhole selfishness 
than be a stingy church member, whose greatest 



372 HARP OF LIFE. 

economy lies in the stint of his liberality towards 
God and humanity; and it is impossible to believe 
that such church members can exercise any saving- 
faith in Jesus Christ, or have any conception of re- 
demptive grace. It is salvation by grace that makes 
the Christian an eternal debtor to God. We gfive to 
God because He gives to us. Those who pay God 
in order to be saved, pay liberally. I do not blame 
such people for munificence under such a false con- 
ception of salvation; but how much more liberal 
should love and gratitude make us who go and g-ive 
because we are already saved by the grace of God! 

The doctrine and duty of g-iving- is most clearly 
defined in both the Old and the New Testament; and 
Paul classes ''Liberality" as a distinguishing" 
"grace" of the Christian. He exalts and praises 
this "grace" among- the Macedonian Churches when 
out of "great trial of affliction the abundance of their 
joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches 
of their liberality;" and the very first church at Je- 
rusalem "sold their possessions" and laid the price 
received "at the feet of the apostles." It is clear 
from these examples that the first Christians enter- 
ed the work of Christ and beg-an their career upon 
the plan of abundant liberality and of exalted sacri- 
fice. They gave out of their "deep poverty" and 
their "trial of afflictions" what they had to benevo- 
lence and to the support of the g-ospel, both at home 
and abroad; and if there is anything- clear in the his- 
tory of primitive Christianity it is that the modern 
theory and practice of the anti-missionary have no 
sanction in the g-ospel. There is not a more damna- 
ble sin than ignorance of, or opposition to, the great 



STINGINESS. 373 

commission of Christ: "Go ye into at J the world and 
preach the gospel to every creature. " I lay down the 
unanswerable proposition that if the commission to 
"teach all nations" ended with the apostles, then the 
commission to "baptize' ' ended with them. The 
same commission which says "discifite" says "bap- 
tize" 

Both the Old and the New Testaments lay down 
the fundamental principles of giving*, both as re- 
lates to the giver and the object given to, in re- 
ligion. 

1. The two leading objects of giving in the Bible 
are embraced in the poor and in the support of the 
gospel. It is hardly necessary for me to discuss the 
duty of giving to the poor, the helping of the help- 
less, the care of the widow and the orphan. The 
word of God is so voluminous and positive upon this 
point, that even the most nominal Christianity does 
not mistake its meaning; and many of our greatest 
philanthropists are among rationalists and infidels, re- 
gardless of our orthodox views of religion. The 
support of the gospel and the gospel ministry, how- 
ever, is subject to conflicting views among those who 
claim to be the orthodoxest of the orthodox; but 
both the law and the gospel are equally clear as to 
the principles upon which the duty of giving to the 
support of the gospel and the gospel ministry are 
based. In all the official or ministerial service ren- 
dered to God and his people the maxim is laid down 
that the "laborer is worthy of his hire;" and that 
those for whom the labor is performed must pay the 
"hire" — not, however, in the "hireling" sense. God 
also establishes the rational rule, that they who serve 



374 HARP OF L,IFE. 

Him are to be disentangled from the secular pursuits 
and calling's of men; and hence the further maxim 
that "they who preach .the gospel shall live of the 
gospel." "No man goeth a warfare at his own 
charges," says the apostle; and he says again that 
they who plant God's vineyard, eat the fruit thereof ; 
and they who feed God's flock, drink the milk there- 
of. The ox that treads out the corn must not be 
muzzled; and the same apostle illustrated further 
that they who sow unto God's people spiritual things 
are entitled to reap of their carnal things. He 
brings up the analogy of service under the law, and 
he holds that, as in the temple those who ministered 
in holy things, cr waited upon the altar, lived upon 
the things of the temple and partook of the altar, so 
God's ministry in the Churches of the New Testa- 
ment, should thus "live of the gospel;" and it may 
be that the tithing system among the Jews for the 
support of the temple and altar service is here in- 
volved by implication in the support of God's minis- 
try under the gospel dispensation. A systematic 
plan of benevolence is at least implied. 

The principle holds good in missionary work be- 
yond the pale of the Churches. Paul for reasons of 
policy among the heathen, never made his ministry a 
matter of "charge" to those for whom he immediate- 
ly labored. He made tents in some places for a liv- 
ing; but in addition to his own self support in the 
founding of churches, he took wages from other 
churches already established, as at Corinth, Philippi 
and other places. So in benevolence he raised funds 
in the Churches of Macedonia, Galatia and Corinth, 
for the poor saints in Jerusalem; and he went so far 



STINGINESS. 375 

as to establish the rule of giving-, or raising- money, 
by laying- it by in store on Sunday, or the "first 
day of the week" — the best rule that was ever set 
up for systematic beneficence — according- as God 
prospers us. No anti-missionary consolation can be 
found in the teachings or practice of Paul who labor- 
ed with his own hands for self support while he 
preached the gospel to others. In the ninth chapter 
of I. Corinthians, he expressly demands the sup- 
port of the gospel ministry at the hands of the 
churches. 

2. Again the Scriptures lay down the principles 
of giving as they affect the giver. They teach that 
it is an inestimable blessing and a source of infinite 
development to give; and they teach the awful curse 
of stinginess or illiberality, as in the case of Ananias 
and Sapphira. "Freely ye have received, freely 
give" said Christ to His disciples; and when Peter 
and John had neither gold nor silver to bestow upon 
the penny- begging cripple, they said: "Such as we 
have, we give unto thee" — and they lifted him up into 
the wholeness and happiness of life, temporal and 
eternal. Said Jesus to them again: "Give and it shall 
be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, 
shaken together and running over shall men give 
into your bosoms;" and Paul traditionally quotes 
Christ as having said: "It is more blessed to give 
than to receive" — all of which is Greek to a stingy 
soul. "God loves a cheerful giver;" and He says 
that "the liberal soul shall be made fat." 

Not only does liberality bless and develop the soul 
and the life of the giver, but it affects his future and 
his circumstances. According to the very law of 



376 HARP OF UFE. 

God — in the very nature of things — this old maxim 
is true: * 'There is that scattereth and yet increaseth: 
there is that withholdeth more than is meet, and yet 
it tendeth to poverty." Stinginess means substrac- 
tion by addition; liberality means multiplication by 
division. We sow to reap, go to grow, give to live, 
deny to die. ' 'Bread cast upon the waters will re- 
turn after many days." No labor in God is in vain; 
no gift to God but comes back again. The nature 
of Christianity is to enrich by giving, to increase by 
exhaustion; and the law of its existence is extension 
or extinction. To keep the pot full you must keep 
it boiling over; and to keep the cow from going dry 
you must milk as well as feed her. The wicked 
may flourish for a season; but God's children cannot 
be stingy and prosper. The best evidence that a 
professor is not a possessor of religion, is that he can 
be stingy and prosper — deny God and not starve — 
sin and not suffer. 

Covetousness, in the New Testament, is "IDOL- 
ATRY;" and every Church member who cannot be 
otherwise cured of stinginess should be disciplined 
tor the worship of Mammon. "The love of money 
is the root of all evil;" and avarice is one of the 
damning sins in the Churches — especially so in this 
age of millionaire grasp after the "almighty dollar." 
Like adultery, murder, revelling and other grosser 
forms of sin, covetousness is subject to church dis- 
cipline, irrespective of loss or gain; and the health- 
iest process to church life, to-day, would be to ex- 
clude from church relations many of our gold-god 
idolaters, in order that they might graze with the 
goats long enough to tell whether or not they were 



STINGINESS. 377 

the sheep of God's pasture. In a certain Church in 
Ohio there was a brother worth $300,000, with a 
big" income every year. He sat in a prominent pew, 
sang hymns of praise, listened to the gospel every 
Sunday, and gave his pastor ten dollars a year! The 
brethren could do nothing with his stinginess; and 
so they preferred the charge of covetousness against 
him, and excluded him from their fellowship. He 
staid out and pouted for a year; but discipline woke 
him up to his awful guilt, and he came back with 
repentance, confessed his stinginess and was re- 
stored. He subscribed $300 a year to the church,, 
besides giving to missions, benevolence and education;; 
and although this did not cover his ability or duty„ 
it was a great improvement over the past. It is said 
that he continued to grow in the grace of liberality 
until he died. Thank God for the Peabodys, Rock- 
efellers and Vanderbilts; but, O Lord, lead them to 
do ten times more for the advancement of thy suffer- 
ing cause. 

I do not care for a man's closeness in business, if 
he is honest; and it does not matter how economical 
he is, if he is not stingy. I hate stinginess; and 
when I look out upon the millions who are robbing 
the cause of Christ, I ask: "How is it possible for 
these poor, shrivelled, stingy multitudes to 'see' or 
'enter' the Kingdom of God? Can a camel go 
through the eye of a needle? I know that salvation 
is by grace; but how can a man be in possession of 
the riches of grace, or grow in the riches of faith, 
within the animalcular cell of a stingy soul?" No 
other grace can grow in the soil of the heart with 
illiberality overshadowing it; and whenever, in the 



378 HARP OF LIFE. 

soil of the heart, illiberality flourishes every other 
weed of sin will grow and choke the soul. 

O man of God, flee this form of idolatry. Lay not 
up for yourself treasures upon earth but in heaven, 
where the bank never breaks and where the cashier 
never steals. In the language of Christ, make unto 
yourself friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness — 
convert the world by means of your money — that 
when you fail in the stewardship of God's riches and 
mercies on earth these friends may welcome you 
into everlasting- habitations. O, what a business to 
engage in! How rich the reward hereafter! How 
blind the stingy wretch who is rich toward himself 
and penurious with his God! How Jesus calls 
such a man "fool" in the parable of the rich farmer! 
God nor the Devil has any respect for a stingy man; 
and while God has nothing* to do with him here or 
hereafter the Devil only uses him as a robber of God 
in this world. Hereafter he will treat him different- 
ly. If he has cheated the Devil, as he did his God, 
in the disuse of his means, he will have to pay up for 
it somehow in hell. If nothing- more I imag-ine that 
the Devil will tack the placard of "FOOL" on his 
back, and send him all around and forever throug-h 
hell, crying- at every step: Pool! fool!! fool!!! God 
help us to escape the designation and the damnation 
of the "fool," rich toward himself and poor towards 
his God. Stinginess in any form is an abomination; 
but stinginess toward the good God — toward Christ 
— who loved us and gave himself for us -is the cer- 
tain way to eternal shame and poverty. The horror 
of horrors is the robbery of God of any part of our 
time, talent, influence, opportunity, or money; and 



STINGINESS. 379 

the poorest wretch in eternity will be the man who 
had the most and gave the least to the cause of God 
and humanity. In the figurative language of Sam 
Jones, if some men should ever get to Heaven they 
would have to sleep with their pants under their 
head for a pillow. If stinginess could even get to 
Heaven this would be its doom; but there'll be no 
stinginess there. 




Murder Will Out. 



4 6JEgE SURE your sin will find you out." The 
-"-^ rule may have some exceptions so far as the 
detective power of man is concerned in the discovery 
of crime, but in general the rule holds good here be- 
low, and will have no exceptions in the world to come. 
But few crimes go undetected, however cunningly 
the criminal lays his plans or covers his tracks. 
When a crime is committed every eye and eaj 
is open and on the alert, and the slightest indi- 
cation or complication of guilt is discovered. Every 
man sets out upon the heels of the perpetrator, and 
when a hundred different minds are looking in a hun- 
dred different directions it is almost impossible for 
guilt to elude justice. Besides this the criminal, 
however hardened and schooled in villainy, will be 
inconsistent somewhere. He may overdo his effort 
to show innocence; his previous or subsequent steps 
in the details of his crime may not fit the scheme; the 
guilty conscience may turn coward; the chain of cir- 
cumstances may draw around him the cordon of his 
guilt; the surroundings of his awful deed may be 
totally at variance with the vindication of his appar- 
ent innocence based upon prima facie evidence. Tru fch 
and virtue are always consistent — falsehood and vice 
are always in conflict — when put to the test of trial. 
Hence, even from earthly standpoints there is almost 
always a clue to crime somewhere, and hence the 

(380) 



MURDER WILIy OUT. 383 

general impossibility for crime to escape. "Murder 
will out." "Be sure your sin will find you out." 

In the picture before us is a case of murder. The 
victim lies in his blood; and the murderer* with 
clenched dagger is stalking away. He has dropped 
behind him his handkerchief — the detective left upon 
his track. Over the victim poises the angel of ven- 
geance with a drawn sword pointing to the disap- 
pearing villain, the symbol of divine assurance that 
crime shall not escape punishment at the hands of 
God. "Where is thy brother?' 1 asked the Almighty 
of Cain; and thus we see the purpose of God that no 
guilty man shall escape. Behind a tree in the dis- 
tance stands the Devil who instigated the crime, and 
who now mocks the murderer as he points to the 
handkerchief, the evidence of his guilt; and by the 
side of the criminal walks the skeleton of conscience, 
and who will lie under his bed and stand behind his 
door the balance of his life. This is the fate of the 
murderer; and though he may escape the law of man, 
yet he cannot get away from God and conscience, 
himself nor the Devil. Conscience may sometimes 
or for awhile be dead; but even then there is a silent, 
sullen, and inert sense of despair which settles down 
upon the blood-stained and ruined soul. There may 
be no present or poignant regret, but there is no hope 
and no peace. The darkness and dread of midnight 
lowers forever upon the dead heart, even when con- 
science ceases to throb through its blood for a season. 
Often the murderer can sleep soundly after his crime, 
but it is the sleep of death. 

Sometimes the murderer escapes detection, or else 
he flees beyond the power of arrest; and he seeks to 



384 HARP OF LIFE. 

live out a life of apparent innocence by trying* to 
stifle his secret in his own breast, and by trying* to 
walk orderly before his fellow men. Or again he 
tries to drown the sense of his guilt in amusement, 
in travel, in dissipation, in many ways to divert him- 
self from his awful deed. In such cases the effort 
proves vain. Sooner or later the secret must come 
out, and the criminal becomes his own detective. He 
goes back, after years of wandering, and unbosoms 
his guilt; or else he takes his life with a confession 
left behind; or if he lives to die upon his natural bed 
he tells the story at last. "Be sure your sin will 
find you out," if conscience has to wring the confes- 
sion from your lips; and thus thousands of murderers 
have brought themselves to judgment. Every year 
"conscience money,* ' by thousands of dollars, is sent 
to Washington in the mail to be returned to show 
who have been swindled or robbed, by those who can 
no longer keep the secret, or hold on to the burning 
evidence of their own guilt. In one of our States, a 
few years ago, ^.vq men murdered an old man for his 
money; and for a long while no clue could be found 
to the perpetrators of the crime. There was one of 
the five, however, whose conscience made him a cow- 
ard. He was always alarmed, and would break and 
run from men whom he imagined were after him. 
4 'The guilty flee whennomanpursueth." He started 
and shuddered at the breeze that rustled the leaves. 
Every sound sent a thrill of horror to his heart. One 
day a party of three men rode up behind him, and 
looking back he ran away as for his life; and arous- 
ing the suspicion of the horsemen, they pursued and 
caught him, when he confessed his crime and ex- 



MURDER WILIv OUT. 385 

posed His confederates. All except himself were 
hanged and lie only escaped hanging- by turning* 
State's evidence and was sent to the penitentiary for 
life. Hundreds thus are detected by a guilty con- 
science, or come to judgment by some unforeseen 
circumstance. In the celebrated case of Cluverius of 
Richmond, Va., a watch key dropped at the old 
reservoir led to conviction of murder. In a celebrated 
case in Alabama one man shot another in his own 
door at night, and next morning a neighbor picked 
up the wadding of the gun and putting the peices to- 
gether he found that they made a scrap torn from 
an almanac. Going to the suspected murderer's 
home he found the almanac and fitted the scrap which 
had been torn out, and this convicted and hung the 
bloody fiend. 

Generally there is something which so leads to the 
detection of crime. A track, a spot of blood, a 
dropped letter, previous remark, a suspicious act — 
something in the nature of things or in character of 
conduct, which leads to conviction. Few schemes 
are so well laid or so perfectly executed as to escape 
the detective's clue or the lawyer's acumen. Often 
circumstantial proof is the most striking and impres- 
sive upon the mind of a jury; and now and then the 
establishment of a well linked chain of circumstan- 
tial evidence constitutes the most masterly and sen- 
sational effort of the astute and wiley counsel at the 
bar. - 

Again the criminal bent on evil often convicts him- 
self by the recklessness of his conduct. Men pur- 
suing evil become blinded by desperation or infatua- 
tion; and a short career of successful evasion often 



386 HARP OF 1,11* J$. 

emboldens vice or crime so that it becomes an easy 
prey to detection. Sin without method is madness 
in a multitude of cases. Cautious at the start, it 
grows daring and reckless by degrees; and some- 
times vice and crime are so infatuating as to become 
careless of exposure. Thousands when they come 
to themselves by detection or reformation wonder 
and shudder at their inadvertency and recklessness. 
It is only the cool-headed and cold-hearted villain 
who schools himself in plan and method by which 
he hopes to cover his tracks. Even then, as we 
have seen, crime proves of tenest its best detective, 
and the best laid plans of criminals will "gang 
aft aglee" upon the principle that falsehood and 
crime are never consistent at all points with them- 
selves. Ariadne's clue of vengeance will follow 
them through the very labyrinth of their scheme of 
iniquity and find them out. More than this, the 
growth of detective education keeps pace with the 
skill of evil; and in no period of human history has 
it ever been harder for the criminal to escape than 
now. The only difficulty in the way of civilization 
in this country, at least upon this point, is the low 
sense of justice which refuses to convict often the 
highest crimes and inflict their just penalty; or when 
convicted, find their commutation or pardon at the 
hands of corrupt executives, whose only patriotism 
lies in party politics, or else in bribes. 

Above all this, there is a God who has written: 
"Be sure your sin will find you out." The angel of 
vengeance is ever on the track of blood — there is a 
demon that walks with every criminal — and God is 
certain to overtake him here or hereafter. Secrecy 



MURDER WILL, OUT. 387 

may hide him from his fellows, but God will put his 
mark upon him in the handwriting - of nature or con- 
science. Whiskey blooms on the face, lust rots in 
the heart, every vice fixes its furrows on the face and 
traces its lines upon the character. There is no es- 
cape from retribution under God's laws. The blight 
of health, the shriveled form, the haggard face, the 
ruin of fortune, the miseries of conscience — yea, our 
punishment in kind or kindred consequences — follow 
the law that "whatsoever a man soweth that shall 
he also reap." Often the furies of hell clutch the 
seducer, the robber, the slanderer, the drunkard, the 
murderer. In spite of escape from human detection, 
in spite of every device and skill to obviate the sword 
of justice here below, God's judgments follow men 
and nations in some way in this world. But few, if 
any, ever escape in the present life all the conse- 
quences of sin. 

At least, sin will find us out at the final judgment. 
Murder will out there. The "deeds done in the 
body" will have no escape there. However much 
we may have crossed all the lines of human judg- 
ment in this world, or may have escaped both God 
and man, or may have hushed the conscience, if 
possible, we shall appear at a court where the facts 
in the case and the laws involved will be subject to 
no counter plea, except in the blood of Christ. Ju- 
dicially the Christian's sins go beforehand to judg- 
ment, but the sins of the impenitent follow after. 
His iniquities will come trooping behind him like the 
howling pack of wolves on the prairie after their 
prey; and the guilty conscience, unpurged by re- 
deeming blood, will stand "speechless" before God 



388 HARP OP IylPE. 

— even at the great feast "without the wedding* gar- 
ment." Great God! let me be forgiven and clothed 
in the robe of my Redeemer's righteousness there, 
and let my own garments be ' 'washed and made white 
in the blood of the Lamb." We cannot appear at 
the judgment seat of Christ with a spot on our 
clothes or a speck in our nature. We must be clean 
and whiter than snow. Heaven is a state of abso- 
lute perfection, for God is perfect; and nothing but 
perfection can meet perfection or go to perfection. 
The blood of Christ can make the foulest clean, can 
turn the crimson and the scarlet of iniquity white; 
and oh! murderer, luster, drinker, liar, robber, slan- 
derer, reveler, go to "that fountain filled with 
blood" while you may, and wash, and be clean. "Be 
sure your sin will find you out." "Murder will 
out" — but it had better out now, or be found out 
now in the confession of Christ and the washing of 
his blood, than to follow you to the judgment un- 
forgiven, no matter what the earthly consequences 
might be. 



Wonders of Sleep* 



J\H AN is fearfully and wonderfully made. * 'Know 
^ •"* thyself* ' is a maxim written in vain, so far 
as comprehending- the mystery of our being- and at- 
tributes is concerned. Know what we may of self, 
and yet this eg"o is still an inexplicable mystery. 
Like God, in many respects, we are unthinkable and 
unknowable; but we know enoug-h both of God and 
self to believe and act upon the duties, obligations 
and relationships of life, according- to what we know 
in the lig-ht of intuition, reason and revelation. 

One of the great wonders of our being* is sleep, and 
all the phenomena which accompany it — especially 
the phenomena of dreams and somnambulism. In 
order, however, to g-et at the subject analytically, 
let us consider: 

1. The wonders of sleep itself. What is sleep? 
All we know about it physically is that sleep is the 
exhaustion and rest of the nervous system, the relax- 
ation of the muscular system, accompanied by a 
state of sensational unconsciousness. The nutritive 
or reproductive system, however, is just as active, 
if not more so, than ever. In other words, the blood 
circulates, the heart throbs on and life is just as vital 
as when awake; and althoug-h the will itself is in 
abeyance, just as sensational consciousness is absent* 
the mental faculties, such as reason, memory and 
imagination, seem to be in full play. The eyes 

(391) 



392 HARP OF LIFE. 

close, the ears stop, we neither taste, smell nor feel; 
and we lose ourselves, know not where we are; the 
eg-o, the we, is gone and we seem, from certain phys- 
ical standpoints, all but dead. No wonder the poets 
have called sleep "the half-brother of death." 

Sleep is a wonder in itself, but it is a gracious 
provision of God. Young- said it was "Tired nature's 
sweet restorer — balmy sleep;" and the wretched 
Macbeth who "murdered sleep," when he murdered 
the sleeping Duncan, was made to beautifully say: 

*' Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, 
The death to each day's life, sore labor's bath, 
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course, 
Chief nourisher in life's feast." 

God "giveth his beloved sleep;" and when they 
die, he says they "fall on sleep." It gives respite 
to toil and often "shuts up sorrow's eyes;" and 
among all the blessings of this life I know of none 
sweeter and richer than the rest of sleep, and of the 
Sabbath day. The abuse of these blessings destroys 
the nervous system, wastes the muscular organism, 
enervates the mind, demoralizes the heart and disor- 
ganizes society; and the violation of these laws is ac- 
companied with the awful penalty of God's punish- 
ment both upon men and nations. The sleep of the 
night and the rest of the Sabbath are akin in nature 
and effect. The virtue and the business of society 
recuperate, the wheels of wickedness stop, the world 
cools down, and while the lease of strength and life 
is lengthened and invigorated in the good, evil is cur- 
tailed and emasculated every time it stops and rests, 
and gives good an opportunity to correct and eradi- 
cate its influence. No nation, no man, can ever he 



WONDERS OF SLEEP. 393 

converted that does not sleep at night and keep the 
Sabbath day holy. 

Then there are other advantages of sleep. How 
innocent and helpless does a man appear when he is 
asleep! However, mean or dangerous awake, you 
don't have to watch him when asleep. It cures him, 
too, for the time being, of the big-head. His egv, 
his me, is lost — the curl and scorn of his lip departs — 
and for once self-will and rebellion tire down and 
give out, and the wrinkled front of pride and ambi- 
tion is smoothed down. A king is no more than an 
infant then; and the tiger and the lion are as harm- 
less as kittens. Even villainy and iniquity put cu 
an innocent air when asleep; and it would be a blesse , 
thing if bad boys and wicked men could sleep most 
of the time. It would help mothers and fathers 
abundantly, and it would tend to shut up the court- 
house and the jail. Alas! that while good people 
and churches sleep the Devil and his emissaries are 
awake! One thing is certain: God never anywhere 
made provision for his churches to go to sleep. ' * Woe 
unto them that are at ease in Zion." 

2. The wonder of dreams. What is a dream? It 
is mental action of which we are partially conscious 
and which we can perfectly or imperfectly remem- 
ber. The mind like the heart, works when asleep 
as when we are awake, and if we are partially awake 
or conscious, mental action is usually incoherent, 
phantasmagorial and distorted in what is called 
dreams. The reason for this is that the will, by 
which thought and emotion may be governed and 
regulated, is in abeyance; and having no relation to 
time or space, self or surroundings, our imagination 



394 HARP OF LIFE. 

has unlimited play without the guidance of judgment, 
or tangibility to what is natural and reasonable. 
Hence we can travel all around the world or live a 
year in a minute; and hence we may perceive as real- 
ity what is most grossly or fancifully unreal. The 
causes of dreams are ascribed to mental anxiety, 
physical disorders, the bent of talent, disposition, 
our waking trend or intensity of thought, overeat- 
ing and the like; and it is generally true that the 
secret of most of our dreams can be found in the ab- 
normal conditions or the influences by which we are 
affected. 

Nevertheless there are some things in dreams not 
dreamed of in our philosophy. The Scriptures show 
that dreams were often supernatural; and I know 
some people to-day who consult God and are guided 
by their dreams. A gentleman in Nashville, has, on 
this subject, material for a book; and in spite of in- 
credulity one is astounded at the results which have 
followed from this man's obedience to God in what 
he deems as guidance by dreams. It is a well known 
fact in mental philosophy that hundreds of dreams 
have been recorded which were premonitory, pro- 
phetic or so marvelously coincidental as to be beyond 
psychological explanation. Coincidence alone to 
which they have been referred by some of the best 
mental philosophers, has not been regarded as satis- 
factory in the light of facts. Others have tried to 
account for such dreams upon the theory of some 
unknown law of the nervous system, and so the 
mystery rests without explanation. 

One thing dreams convince me of, and that is the 
mighty scope of the soul in capacity and the unfet- 



WONDERS OF SlyEEP. 395 

tered relations it holds to time and space rvhen let 
loose from the hindrances of the body and of its 
present surroundings. They prove to me the iden- 
tity and independence of the soul over the body, of 
mind over matter, and when we enter the spiritual 
world a thousand years will be as a day, and the 
universe will be as the world in which we live. Dis- 
coveries and inventions, the solving of problems and 
the development of ideas, the awakening of the soul 
to new and grander life have transpired in dreams, 
when otherwise trammeled amid all the struggles of 
the soul guided by the senses, dominated by the will 
and aided by its surroundings. One of the wonders 
or mysteries of sleep is that the mind is still active 
and more mighty amid the slumbers of ''unconscious 
cerebration" above the powers of its most wide-awake 
culture, but of this we shall speak more fully and con- 
fidently under another and a more mysterious head. 
3. The wonders of somnambulism. This condition 
of the mind or body cannot be attributed to a state 
of imperfect sleep or partial consciousness, as in 
dreams. Whatever the somnambulist thinks, feels 
or does, he is absolutely asleep and totally uncon- 
scious of the fact. He wakes up with an otherwise 
insoluble problem solved; or he has thought out, or 
said, or done what in his waking hours, seemed im- 
possible. He gets up out of his bed and dresses per- 
fectly, or he goes off to the river and goes in swim- 
ming, or he runs across the rafters and down the 
ladder of a new framed house, or through a cellar 
and down a dark alley with the police after him, or 
he gets up on top of a building and walks the parapet 
where he could not have otherwise gotten, and down 



396 HARP OF IylFE. 

from which you have to take him with a ladder; and 
yet in all these processes of action he is perfectly ac- 
curate and ordinarily safer than he would be awake. 
Not only this, but he can write articles, paint pic- 
tures and do work which is better than his conscious 
intellect and ability are capable of; and yet in all 
this he is fast asleep and in the dark, and never has 
the slightest recollection of what he has thought, felt, 
or done. I refer the reader to the instances given 
by Upham, Haven, Abercrombie and other mental 
philosophers upon this subject. 

Somnambulism is what is called "unconscious 
cerebration;" that is, the brain of the somnambulist 
is active while his body is asleep in such a manner 
and to such an extent that he can think and do as if 
he were awake, only that, in some instances, wiser 
and better than in a state of cerebral consciousness. 
Of this wonder or mystery of sleep no satisfactory 
explanation can be given. The "automatic theory" 
of action in such a state accounts very well for much 
we think and do when awake, but not when we are 
unconsciously asleep and without eyes and in total 
darkness. The theory of a "general sense" into 
which the several "special senses" are resolved or 
absorbed looks plausible, but the explanation still 
does not explain how that a man dead asleep and 
with his eyes bandaged can, read, write, paint, run, 
think and act with clearer vision and nicer operation 
than possible to the man awake. The merely men- 
tal processes of the somnambulist are more obvious, 
since like dreams they may be the result of dominant 
thought and feeling unobstructed by the will and un- 
hindered by our surroundings; but the physical ac- 



WONDERS OF SLEEP. 397 

tions of the somnambulist are unaccountable by any 
theory yet advanced, it seems to me. 

Finally, let me recur to my closing- thought under 
the last head. This wonder of sleep seems to teach 
that there is an inner consciousness and a hidden soul- 
life independent of all bodily organisms, and which 
sometimes under abnormal conditions manifests it- 
self as in somnambulism; and the phenomena of this 
mystery goes to demonstrate that the soul in our 
present sinful and diseased and stupefied body is 
fettered in the manifestation of its capacities and 
powers. The vision and operation of the somnam- 
bulist are superior to his education and culture. The 
young lady who painted a picture for a prize in Paris 
was discovered painting- it in her sleep; and what she 
did asleep was better than what she did awake. Yes, 
my soul is not only independent of my body, but 
greater than its best culture; and in its identity and 
independence it is not only separate and distinct from 
the body, but imperishable and immortal — breathed 
of God into our bodies as into the body of Adam. 
Let us take care of our bodies and subordinate them 
to the intellect so as to g-ive the soul the best chance 
possible for development; but let us rejoice that one 
day, when both soul and body shall be spiritual and 
reunited in the resurrection, we shall enter into 
that glorious and unfettered sphere of existence 
where nothing short of God and the universe shall 
be greater and grander than our soul. 



The Sabbath and Marriage* 



p TpHE) two first great laws of God, as. given to man, 
^ instituted and guarded the Sabbath Day and 
Marriage. They are the two pillars which stand 
beneath the fabric of the social world. Upon their 
observance depends every other law which involves 
social order, domestic felicity and good government; 
and without them in full force, there can be no reign 
of moralityand religion. There can be no true prog- 
ress or prosperity among men without them side by 
side, columns of strength and beauty beneath every 
institution which educates, exalts and advances the 
human family. They stand upon the earth, but 
they reach up to heaven; and upon their unseen top 
largely rest the destinies of eternity. The nations 
that never had them both are either extinct, or dead 
while they live; and no nation which has observed 
them both, however imperfectly, has ever died. 
Those countries where the Bible Sabbath and Bible 
marriage have been the closest observed, are the 
founders of modern civilization, and they wield the 
mightiest power among the nations of the earth. 
The open Bible, civil and religious liberty, the purest 
reign of the Christian religion, the feeblest hold of 
infidelity, the universal spread of education, the 
greatest progress of science, art, learning and labor, 
run parallel with the closest approach to the Scrip- 
tural Sabbath and Scriptural marriage. 

(398) 




< POH^STIJ© Ff;UI©iJTY 




jLsofJ-on 



THK SABBATH AND MARRIAGE. 401 

Take even the Christian nation with a corrupted 
Sabbath and marriage relation, and you find the 
most deteriorated forms of civilization; and where 
either one of these institutions is disregarded, the 
other is vitiated, as in France. Even where the 
continental Sabbath is observed, not only are super- 
stition and infidelity most strangely commingled or 
in conflict, but woman is most helpless and degrad- 
ed, and the marriage relation, however stringently 
guarded by law, is most corrupted, or misconceived 
in private life. Woman's highest and noblest exal- 
tation is discovered alone in the land of the purest 
Sabbath and of marriage co-ordination, as in Eng- 
land, America and other countries of like character 
and constitution. Of course such countries as Tur- 
key, Persia, China, India, Egypt and the like, where 
the Christian Sabbath and the Bible marriage rela- 
tion are unknown, or ignored, are completely out of 
line with the modern march of education, religion, or 
political economy. Woman knows nothing there of 
her divinely ordained sphere, or position, in the gov- 
ernment of God; and the only hope of redemption to 
such nations is the dissemination of religion and the 
law of Jesus Christ. 

I have always observed that infidelity and licen- 
tiousness alike have aimed to destroy these two first 
institutions of God. Anarchy and socialism, in their 
natural fight against the Bible, seek first to destroy 
the Sabbath; and the whole tendency of their infidel 
and licentious principles is to convert love into lust 
and to degrade the marriage relation into the base 
ideal of free-love affinity. To kill the Sabbath is to 
kill marriage and vice versa; and to kill one is to kill 



402 HARP OF LIFE. 

both. No people can hold to the one and not hold to 
the other; and no people can let loose the one, in its 
Scriptural sense, and not let loose the other. It may 
be said, in the beginning- God joined them together; 
and whoever puts asunder what God has joined to- 
gether, destroys both. These two institutions are as 
inseparable as the Siamese twins. They mutual- 
ly support and embrace each other under the com- 
mon capital and chapiter of that exquisite workman- 
ship which is basal to the social fabric of the world's 
order and harmony and glory among men; and in the 
midst of our modern civilization nothing but social- 
ism and anarchy, infidelity and licentiousness would 
pull down these two columns of strength and beauty, 
both strong and both beautiful. 

How is it that these two institutions are so essen- 
tial to each other? Let me say that God's hebdoma- 
dal arrangement of human rest and worship seem to 
be constituted in the very nature of things; and not 
only so, but it is the day of all others best suited to 
the development of domestic and social relations 
among men. It takes the Sabbath to make a good 
religious family and a happy home; and it takes just 
such a home and family to appreciate and maintain 
the Sabbath. Besides this, without these two in- 
stitutions in their combined force and relationship 
the Christian church and the conversion of the world 
are impossibilities. The very bulwarks of family, so- 
ciety, church and state, under any Christian concep- 
tion of morality and religion, are the Sabbath and the 
marriage relation as set up in God's word; and with- 
out both, Christianity can nowhere live in the world. 
It takes them both to make the model home, and it 



THE SABBATH AND MARRIAGE. 403 

takes them both to make the model church; and with- 
out the model home and the model church, New Tes- 
tament Christianity is an impossibility. Nay, more- 
over, without primitive Christianity, not only is the 
Christian Sabbath and Christian marriage impossi- 
ble, but the highest and purest form of civilization is 
impossible in any age or country. 

Again, these two institutions are jointly symbolic 
and prophetic of our spiritual and eternal conditions 
and relationships. The earthly Sabbath is the 
promise of that "rest which remaineth for the peo- 
ple of God;" and marriage is the figure of that union 
between Christ and his people, in which the "rest" 
is made possible both for time and eternity. The 
Sabbath in its earthly aspect is a permanent and un- 
changing symbol of the heavenly state ; and marriage is 
a like figure of the heavenly relation. Our state and 
relationship in heaven are inseparably connected; 
and nothing could be a more criminal and blasphe- 
mous outrage upon the wisdom and law, the good- 
ness and mercy of God, than to lay foul and sacri- 
legious hands upon these two sacred institutions, 
which together involve all that is blessed and holy 
of the highest ideals of salvation by grace through 
faith in Christ, in whom we rest and are united. 
Palsied be the foot that would trample them with 
unhallowed profanity in the dust of infidelity and 
licentiousness. The curse of God will forever rest 
upon the man or the nation or the world that at- 
tempts to destroy these two sacred and co-ordinate 
symbols of his rest for and his union with his people 
both in time and eternity. 

This brings us to another important consideration 



404 HARP OF LIFE. 

of our subject. These two institutions are moral 
and therefore permanent. They have some positive 
or arbitrary characteristics appended to them and 
some variations in form according- to the different 
dispensations to which they have been related; but in 
all their fundamental and substantial significance 
they have never undergone any change. Hence, they 
are both incorporated in the Decalogue under the law 
which commands the keeping- of the Sabbath holy 
and condemns the sin of adultery; and in the New 
Testament the Lord Jesus Christ claimed to be 
"Lord of the Sabbath," which was "made for man" 
and not the Jew only, and clearly defined and estab- 
lished the marriage relation. Not only is this true 
in the New Testament as to the literal fact and 
foundation of these two institutions, but also as to 
their symbolic import; and however changed the 
form and ceremonial of these two institutions under 
the g-ospel dispensation, still it is true that substan- 
tially and fundamentally we have the Christian Sab- 
bath and Christian marriage as ordained of God in 
the beginning-. We are still to rest and worship 
God one day in seven and then prefigure our heaven- 
ly state; and we are still to marry the one wife, and 
then prefigure our union with Christ. So teach 
Christ and Paul; and when God speaks let every 
man be a liar who speaks to the contrary. 

Finally, let me plead that this great country, this 
land of free churches and happy homes, this land of 
law and liberty, of individual manhood and of collec- 
tive equality, never, never disregard these two insti- 
tutions, inseparable in their power to preserve the 
purity of national life, and indispensable to national 



THK SABBATH AND MARRIAGE. 405 

prosperity and perpetuity. This nation was rocked 
in the cradle of Christianity and born of Protestant 
principles, founded in the. sanctions of the Christian 
Sabbath and Christian marriage; and with its Chris- 
tian churches and Christian homes, these two pillars 
of strength and beauty stand beneath our Christian 
civilization, our civil and religious freedom, guarded 
otherwise by the best Constitution that ever but- 
tressed the fabric of human government. Let us 
beware of Sabbath desecration and divorce laws 
which lay their ruthless and profane hands upon 
God's two first great institutions. Let the old world 
keep its Continental Sunday and its holiday super- 
stitions to itself; and let us stamp out the anarchy 
of free-loveism and polygamy and of the Sunday 
picnic in general from our shores. Keep God's day 
and God's marriage law as he ordained them, and we 
shall keep the Church and the home pure; and society 
and government, free and permanent, will take care 
of themselves. When America proves false to the 
Christian Sabbath or to Christian marriage, her 
glory goes back as the sun on the dial of Ahaz. Be- 
ware of that Sunday opening of Expositions and places 
of amusement at the hands of a nation. It may yet 
write "Ichabod" upon the brow of American history. 



Feeding on Wind, 



[ SAW a boy upon a stormy day iu March, when 
-"- the wind was blowing- about forty miles an hour, 
standing- on the corner of a street and champing 
away with his mouth as if he were eating something-. 
"What are you doing my son?" I asked, and he re- 
plied : " I am eating wind . ' ' Just like a boy, you know ; 
and I then asked him how he liked it. "Oh," said 
he, "it is splendid," and I left him eating away with 
all his might and with all the appetite he had for his 
thin and rarefied breakfast. I began to reflect a lit- 
tle, and it made me think of what God said about 
Ephraim "feeding upon wind," and "following after 
the East wind," the meanest, sickliest and most de- 
vitalizing of all the winds that blow from any quar- 
ter. Yet it was the singular diet of Ephraim who, 
instead of trusting God in his dreadful straits, made 
covenant with the Egyptians and then with the 
Assyrians against his enemies, only to find in the end 
his vain hopes blighted. Assistance from man, 
when at variance with God, is feeding on wind; and 
trusting in bribes to your enemies to help you in time 
of trouble is following after desolation. Every false 
hope which lifts its delusive chalice to our lips, every 
flattering unction of evil which we lay to our hearts 
is a vain attempt to live on air. 

Then I began to think of the thousands of people 
in the world who were trying to live upon the same 



(406) 



i 







FEEDING ON WIND. 



FEEDING ON WIND. 409 

unsubstantial food of folly, a pabulum which never 
satisfies the hung-ering-s of the immortal heart and 
which never develops any manhood, or fits us for 
any of the results of true life. Air is an excellent 
thing- to breathe when pure and laden with oxyg-en 
and other vitalizing" elements essential to the health 
of the body. It is the sole feeder of the lungs. 
Without it we could not live five minutes; but when 
we substitute it for bread, it becomes about the last 
thing- we could live upon. Water is better, but Tan- 
ner, the faster, came near dying- upon even that, in 
forty days. Even air and water combined are too 
thin a diet for anything- but a fish; and even the finny 
tribes would soon starve without the presence of 
more solid substances found in the water which they 
consume. Better be a turtle, or a frog- or a serpent, 
which in the winter time, at least, may enter a tor- 
pid state and live upon nothing-, in the mud or in a 
hole. Some people would have a more valuable 
bill of fare, if not a more palatable one, if they could 
live like an allig-ator for awhile, instead of like a 
moth. Certainly they would live long-er, and to a 
better purpose — for the allig-ator is g-ood for his hide, 
if for nothing* else. 

Most people like g-ood and substantial food for the 
body, and they vary it with all sorts of desserts for 
the palate and the taste; and yet they will indulg-e 
the starvation of luxuries with which to feed the soul. 
If the soul were the body with some people — if physi- 
cal food was made of the same elements of vitality 
upon which to feed it — half the world would starve 
to death in ten minutes. It is simply astounding- to 
think of the attenuated ether upon which many can 



410 HARP OF UFE. 

feed and yet seem to live. How vital the poor soul 
must be in all the essential qualities which defy an- 
nihilation! It is proof positive of the immortality of 
the soul from the standpoint, at least, that it cannot 
become essentially non-existent. The truth, how- 
ever, is, that the souls of millions, from moral stand- 
points, are dead or dying- daily. Multitudes fill the 
bill of the woman who liveth in pleasure — "she is 
dead," says James, "while she liveth." "Alive and 
yet dead," as the scriptures put the startling para- 
dox. They "have a name to live and are dead," as it 
is framed in awful phraseology again. If they feed 
on nothing worse, they feed on wind. Some, of 
course, like vultures and ghouls, feed upon the car- 
rion of vice — the rot of the graveyard — but it is only 
necessary to spiritual death that we try to live upon 
the empty air of nothingness. You need not kill the 
soul by subsisting upon the food of vice and iniquity; 
you can just let it starve to death on wind. Let me 
give a few illustrations: 

Is Take the trashy novel reader. From an intel- 
lectual and moral standpoint the romance is the chief 
source of vitality. You see them when at home, on 
the cars, in the public library, feeding upon the 
froth of wind, fanciful and soul-killing fiction, which 
never has a sound moral, a practical end, much less 
a rational conception. The only object of life is the 
fascinating thrill of passion and imagination in the 
oblivious destruction of time. No other literary 
pabulum is palatable or relishable; and the Bible, 
history, poetry, philosophy, art, and science, bio- 
graphy — except the biography of pirates and high- 
waymen — have no attraction to the eater of windy 



FEEDING ON WIND. 411 

fiction, who has no taste even for the more elevated 
novel which has a moral basis and real life for its 
object. Celery with salt is a good relish along with 
substantial food, but he does'nt want even the celery 
of purer fiction by which he can at least eat himself 
hungry for something more substantial. He lives on 
the wind of intoxicating and demoralizing romance 
and story, which affect the soul about as rum and 
whisky do the body. 

2. Notice the theater goer. The stage play, in 
general, breathes a lifeless and demoralizing atmos- 
phere upon which multitudes of people feed. If the 
stage was characterized, as a rule, by anything 
highly intellectual, moral, or substantial, the theater 
would have to go out of business. Its object, like 
the novel, is to excite the passions, play upon an over- 
wrought imagination and a vitiated fancy; and there 
is nothing in the ordinary drama which can elevate 
mind or heart or lead to any practical conception or 
result of real life. Men and women are made no 
wiser, better, or happier; and it is a fact that true 
piety and spirituality fade out of the very soul of the 
theater going church member. It is feeding on wind 
instead of God; and this is the best illustration of 
judging the theatrical tree by its fruit. To religion, 
to say nothing of mind and morals, it bears the ap- 
ples of Sodom — the ashes of nothingness, starvation, 
death; and those who have any vital godliness, or who 
enjoy their spirituality, or do any good in winning 
souls, or who wield any religious influence, or who 
would be called for comfort or counsel to the dying 
bed of a lost sinner, never go to the theater. 

3. Look at the ballroom. The dance, especially 



412 HARP OF UFE. 

* 

the round dance, is another amusement which kills 
piety, destroys power, and annihilates Christian in- 
fluence; and to say nothing* of its demoralizing- ten- 
dencies, it is feeding- upon wind so far as any sub- 
stantial good is concerned to intellectual or moral 
life. Cicero said that "they who dance have no 
brains," and it is certain, whether Cicero was true or 
not, that they who dance have no love nor relish for 
spiritual religion, or Christian duty; and it is more 
certain still that they have no spiritual influence over 
their fellows. Again, as in the novel and the stag-e 
play, you have to judg-e the tree by its fruits; and it 
is but simple history to say that these three trees 
have been the Bohun Upas under the deadly shades 
and poisoned atmosphere of which thousands of souls 
have starved to death by feeding- upon the East wind 
of intoxicating- pleasure for a season. 

4. I might notice here all the airy and idle, not to 
say vitiated, life of what is called •'society." Many 
of the rich, the refined, and fashionable people of the 
social world feed simply upon wind for a living. 
The costly equipage, the luxurious table, the splen- 
did parlor, the sparkling jewels, and the richly orna- 
mented dress (often not more than half a dress), the 
"swell occasion," the card table and the club, the 
wine cup and the wassail, the display of beauty and 
vanity, the indulgence of wit, humor, and pastime 
— all this at the expense of wealth, in the neglect of 
religion and in the starvation of the immortal soul — 
nay, in the cultivation of pride and contempt for all 
that is meek, humble, lowly, and Christlike — is but 
the little boy on the corner of the street eating 
the March wind. These people sometimes belong to 



FEEDING ON WIND. 413 

the church; but, alas, for the poor church that wanes 
and dies in spirituality under the shadow and in the 
atmosphere of worldliness and vanity sitting- in hig-h 
places! Many a church of Christ dies of starvation 
in trying- to live on wind; and often the poor pastor 
has so to preach to his people as to feed them on the 
thin air of gospel nothingness. 

5. But I must close with the most serious part of 
my sketch. Every false hope upon which a man 
builds for eternity is feeding- his soul upon wind. 
Self-righteousness is the airy delusion of the moral- 
ist, or the Pharisee, seeking- to work out his own sal- 
vation without Christ; and if ever there was a reli- 
gious phantom upon which the soul starved itself here 
below and damned it for eternity, it is the doctrine 
that the best man ever born of Adam did not need 
the cleansing blood of the crucified Redeemer. All 
ritualism, too, is feeding- upon wind — the effort to 
make the blood of Christ effective for salvation and 
sanctification through the medium of third persons, 
ceremonies, and organisms among- men; and all ration- 
alism is feeding- upon wind — the effort to make the 
blood of Christ effective through the reason and cul- 
ture of discursive belief, and without the power of 
the Holy Spirit. Both ritualism and rationalism 
make the blood of Christ of none effect; and any 
trust to rite, or reason, in any sense to save the soul, 
is to feed it upon the winds of the wildest delusion 
which ever took the shape of a Christian heresy. It 
is next to infidelity, which denies Christ altogether, 
and which is next to that last of all heresies, athe- 
ism, which denies a God altogether; but I am thank- 
ful that only a few of the human race ever reach the 



414 HARP OF LIFE. 

awful crime of starving- the soul upon the illusive 
folly of the "fool," who alone hath said in his heart: 
"No God/! 

Every species of religious unbelief is wind which 
can only feed men to starvation and death. Even 
to procrastinate to a convenient season — to put off to 
the evil day — to trust to self, or to time, to beg-in the 
work of salvation, is the cultivation of a false hope 
more baseless than the fabric of vision. The heart 
will harden, the mind become indifferent, and the 
world, the flesh, and the devil will close in and con- 
spire to crush out conviction and aspiration. Oh, 
poor lost sinner, thou art starving- upon wind while 
you fatten for the day of slaug-hter upon false hopes 
and promises; and oh, Christian, thou too art feed- 
ing, like Ephraim, on the wind when you hope for 
good out of delayed efforts to save the perishing* 
world about you! 




°5 



My Standard. 



"V^OU see here several men each with an uplifted 
■^ standard of his own. The standard, in this 
instance, is the symbol of each man's opinion and 
course of conduct upon all lines of thought and ac- 
tion, according- to conviction or predilection. Each 
man thinks and acts for himself, irrespective of the 
standards of other men. 

Before coming- to the idea of this sketch I wish to 
say that it: is not only natural, but right, that men 
differ about many thing's in question. All questions 
have two or more sides to them, and he is a poor man 
who has no standard of his own where men differ. 
In politics a man is a democrat, or a republican, ac- 
cording- to his convictions; and his standard of polit- 
ical integrity or character may legitimately differ 
from another's in some particulars, according- to edu- 
cation or condition. Men are far apart upon the 
theory of practical politics; some hold that the mil- 
lennium has not yet come, and that you must take 
thing's as you find them; while others abhor knavery 
in politics and reserve the right of bringing on the 
millennium, and of being independent of party lines 
and party lashes. So in things indifferent in which 
some things may be lawful and yet not expedient, or 
in which a thing may or may not be right according 
to our surroundings. One man thinks it is a great 
sin to smoke; another thinks it a legitimate pleasure; 



418 HARP OF LIFE. 

and if there is no principle of right or wrong" in- 
volved, then it is a matter of conscience according to 
one's conviction of pleasure or duty. Nevertheless, 
in all such matters we must never forget Paul's 
golden rule of charity: "If eating meat (or drinking 
wine) will offend a weak brother, I will eat no more 
meat (and drink no more wine) while the world 
standeth." 

All this, however, does not cover the point I am 
driving at. One difficulty here lies in the fact that 
men have standards of their own in matters which 
are fixed by the standards of God, or of well estab- 
lished truth. Thousands of Christians, for instance, 
who accept God's word as truth and have recognized 
faith in Christ as essential to their salvation, set up 
a standard of their own in many things experimental 
and practical to religion. Christ teaches us most 
plainly that we are to do good for evil, bestow bless- 
ing for cursing; but there are just hundreds of Chris- 
tians who claim the right to resent insult, or injury, 
with the same spirit of malice or malignity that the 
worldling does. Quite a number of church members 
will shoot you for a wrong quite as readily as the row- 
dy will; and some of them will challenge you for a 
duel, or accept a challenge, just as quick as the most 
consistent devotee of the code duello would. In spite 
of God's standard, they have a standard of their own. 
The New Testament teaches Christians how to settle 
their personal difficulties — positively forbids mem- 
bers of the same church to go to law with a brother 
— but thousands of Christians pay no attention to 
God at all, and pursue their own methods of settling 
difficulties and of securing their endangered legal 



MY STANDARD. 419 

claims. They, too, say that the millennium has not 
yet arrived. 

The same thing is true with other matters of opin- 
ion and conduct among- God's people. Paul tells us 
not to forsake the assembling of ourselves as is the 
manner of some; and yet I have heard scores of 
Christians say that they could do just as well at 
home as to go to church. They can stay away from 
God's house Sabbath after Sabbath; and they feel 
no compunctions of conscience, from the fact that 
they have an opinion of their own, and they have ac- 
cordingly established a course of conduct conform- 
able to their self-made convictions. God tells us to 
give, and how to give, and to give as he prospers us 
— to lay aside our gifts for his cause on the first day 
of the week — and }~et a man will subscribe a pittance 
at the beginning of the year and never make the 
slightest allowance for his increase in prosperity 
-per annum. If, however, there is a decrease he will 
be pretty apt to retrench from his liberality and let 
his brethren bear the burden of responsibility. He 
has a standard of his own for giving; and if you say 
aught to him about it he will ver}^ severely remind 
you that he understands his own business! It is a 
pity he does so well understand his own as not to un- 
derstand the business of his God better. 

So it is with regard to amusements and other sins 
of worldliness which creep into the churches. Many 
Christians dance, or run to the theater, or drink in 
a saloon, and they will tell you that they do it con- 
scientiously. In fact, some preachers tell their mem- 
bers that in such things they must be guided by 
conscience; and as a matter of course this is a carte 



420 HARP OF LIFE. 

blanche to the great mass of professors to leave all 
their sins to a perverted or falsely educated con- 
science. The fact is that conscience alone and of it- 
self is no guide. It always leans to the right; but 
the judgment and the feelings must be educated in 
what makes the right in order to a ''good con- 
science" and the "answer" thereof "toward God." 
The gospel is the only guide to a Christian's con- 
science; but, if a man is going to set up his own stand- 
ard of the gospel, even the gospel cannot be a suffi- 
cient guide to such a man. We are expressly told to 
walk orderly and circumspectly in this crooked and 
perverse world, to have no fellowship with the un- 
fruitful works of darkness, to abstain from the very 
appearance of evil, and that the cross of Christ cru- 
cifies us to the world and the world to us, and it is 
impossible for a Christian to adopt the gospel as a 
standard and so follow Christ and yet run with the 
world and indulge it its pleasures. 

We see the same difficulty with multitudes of 
Christians in business. They have a standard of 
their own and run right into the teeth, fly right into 
the face of the gospel. God charges us to keep the 
Sabbath holy; and yet men tell us that the railroad, 
the street car, and such of the mercantile and manu- 
facturing operations of the country, especially the 
daily newspapers, all are "the ox in the ditch," and 
must be attended to on the Sabbath. So with many 
of the methods of business. God tells us to be hon- 
est — not to lie, nor covet, nor steal — and yet men 
have their standard of business ethics and claim that 
they actually could not make a living upon gospel 
principles ! They must falsely represent their goods. 



MY STANDARD. 421 

They must make by cheating some, because they 
lose on others; they must vary in weights and meas- 
ures, because they suffer shortage by wear and tear 
and other means of lossage. There is a whole lot of 
tricks and devices of trade which are acknowledged 
by men of business to be contrary to God's standard, 
but perfectly legitimate because recognized in busi- 
ness circles as a tacit agreement to take advantage 
not only of others, but of each other in all sorts of 
traffic. God's standard in many busines circles is of 
no authority whatever; and what Mr. Ingalls said of 
politics is often true of commerce, that to the lines of 
business among men even the golden rule has no ap- 
plication. 

Of course there are some things upon which almost 
all men would agree that God's standard was right 
and must be followed. If a man steals your pocket 
book you will fly to the principles of justice in order 
to get protection; and yet among lawyers often it is 
a maxim or standard that in the defense of their 
clients, however guilty, they must clear them if 
they can. Even in legislation and judgment the 
standards of God are violated upon principles of 
policy, and the standards of men are set up against 
every principle of divine ethics. Christ gives but 
one law for divorce; our laws fix a dozen unknown 
to the Scriptures; and just so our law-makers are 
the law breakers from the standpoint of almost 
every enactment under the code of Almighty God. 
In our Legislatures, in our National Congress, a 
large number of the representatives is composed of 
Christian men from every religious denomination of 
the country; and yet legislatively they set up stand- 



422 HARP OF LIFE. 

ards on many lines totally at variance with God's 
standard of right and wrong. 

Finally, there are many who follow the standards 
of other people instead of God's. They take second- 
hand theology from men instead of taking it first 
hand from God; and then they congratulate them- 
selves upon the ground that anything will do for 
conscience which good and wise men set up for stand- 
ards. Many a man has followed his mother or his 
father or his preacher instead of Christ, and to mul- 
titudes the word of God is only of secondary author- 
ity and importance. Even when you present what 
God says upon given lines, prejudice or preference 
closes the eye or shuts the ear of conviction from the 
light of argument or investigation, and a Sanhedrin 
of theologians couldn't turn an ignoramus thus af- 
flicted. Nothing has ever set up so many human 
standards against the Bible as human preference 
and human prejudice. The little boy carried a stone 
in one end of his sack and corn in the other when he 
went to mill; and his reason for his nonsense was that 
his "daddy did that way." "My daddy was an 
ass, therefore I'll be one." Such nonsense may do 
for stones and corn in the same sack, but it will 
not answer the demands of reason and manhood in 
following God's truth, the world to the contrary not- 
withstanding. Let God be true and every man a 
liar. "To the law and to the testimony" — a "thus 
saith the Lord" — should be the motto of every hon- 
est and sensible man. 




samson's seven locks. 



Samson's Seven Locks* 



UATE} have before us the sad spectacle of the mighty 
v v Samson asleep in the lap of Delilah. A Phil- 
istine is cutting- off the seven locks of strength from 
his head; and, in imagination, you behold seven devils 
each with a lock, sporting about in the air above and 
holding a kind of a carnival over the victory achieved 
at last over God's once great and valorous servant. 
It was he who slew a lion with his own hand as if it 
had been a kid, slaughtered a thousand Philistines at 
one time with the jawbone of an ass, and carried off 
the gates of Gaza upon his shoulders. How are the 
mighty fallen! He beneath whose footsteps a nation 
trembled is caught and conquered, at last, dallying 
in the lap of a deceitful woman, who pretended to love 
him, stole the secret of his strength, and betrayed him 
into the hands of his enemies. Not only his seven 
locks are being shorn off, but he is to be bound with 
ropes, his eyes put out, and, with the hopelessness of 
a galley slave, he is to grind the balance of his life in 
the mills of the Philistine gods. Only at the last, 
when his light has been extinguished, his life useless, 
and his soul chastened, will God give him the great- 
est victory of all;* but even then the temple of Gaza, 
which he is to pull down upon the Philistines, is to 
crush his own head, the fitting termination, crowned 
with God's gracious honors of a life otherwise miser- 
able and worthless, yet redeemed. 

(425) 



426 HARP OF LIFE, 

Alas, for poor Samson, how we do pity the fate of 
one whose mighty possibilities were extinguished in 
the indulgence of weaknesses which became mightier 
than his possibilities! He was as petulant and pas- 
sionate as a child — as freakish and whimsical — and 
lust and licentiousness betrayed him into by and for- 
bidden paths, in which he, who was the strongest 
man on record, fell where a child might have stood. 
Extraordinary men, it is said, have extraordinary 
weaknesses, and so it proved in Samson's case, as in 
the history of many of the greatest men who have 
ever lived. The pride and conceit of power have 
been the weak spot in the fortress of many a gigan- 
tic character, breached and entered by the enemy of 
souls; and, as has been said again, a fortress is no 
stronger than its weakest point, at which the artful 
enemy always makes the strongest assault. How 
many a Samson blind, has, at last, pulled down the 
temple of manhood in ruin upon his own head, as well 
as upon the heads of others! ' 'Let him that thinketh 
he standeth take heed lest he fall," no matter how 
strong he is. 

But we want to chalk- talk a little about the seven 
locks which were cut from Samson's head. We 
shall make those seven locks of strength symbolical 
of seven virtues, or graces, which would have made 
the manhood and character of Samson impregnable 
to the attacks of the world, the flesh, and the devil, 
and which will so fortify the manhood and character 
of any other man in the world: 

1. Let us consider the lock of Truth, which the 
Philistines cut off and handed, so to speak, to one of 
the little devils that flitted away laughing and mock- 



samson's seven locks. 427 

ing over the giant's ruin. Samson lost that lock, 
which is the first principle in manhood and the 
brightest jewel that sparkles upon the robe of char- 
acter. He told Delilah several lies about wherein his 
strength lay; and he seemed perfectly reckless as to 
the several kinds of deception he practiced upon her 
and the Philistines. He must have gotten into the 
habit of lying, else he had not lied so rapidly and so 
easily; and herein we discover one of the fundamental 
weaknesses by which the Titan in strength fell. If 
Samson had not told several lies about the secret of 
his great strength to Delilah — if he had not lied at 
all — he would not finally have been cajoled and 
pressed into telling the truth to his ruin, and in or- 
der to get rid of her importunities. The truth ruined 
him at last in the folly of his infatuated delusion, in 
which he believed a lie to his destruction by trusting 
a false woman. 

2. Notice the lock of Purity. Samson lost that, if 
not before, in the licentious debauch of Gaza, when, 
but for his strength, he would have been entrapped 
in the walls of the city. Not only was he a liar, but 
he was not virtuous; and when this quality, or grace, 
of manhood is gone, his integrity is so far destroyed 
that he is liable to just such a disaster as befell Sam- 
son in the lap of Delilah. Lust is the greatest emas- 
culater of human strength, physical, mental, and 
moral, unless it be whisky. Thousands of the 
brightest and grandest geniuses which ever came 
into the world have withered and died under the 
clutches of this moral octapus which entwines and 
devours every fiber of man's moral nature. It ruined 
Pompey, as well as Samson, and changed the history 



428 HARP OF UFE. 

of the world as he fell under the blandishments and 
the charms of Cleopatra, that beautiful serpent of 
the Nile. How many thousands of our young- men 
morally die every year under the rasor of lust and 
licentiousness, which cuts off and casts away the 
beautiful lock of purity; and often it is cut from the 
head of beautiful and fair young" womanhood, never 
ag-ain to grow back ag-ain! 

3. The lock of Temperance. Samson had that 
cut off, too. He was a very intemperate man — not 
that he drank wine or strong- drink, for he was a 
Nazarite — but that he g-ave way to his temper and 
his passions which had inordinate control over him. 
This fact reveals the source of much of his weakness; 
and it is always true that he who has no control over 
his temper and his passions, never controls any one 
else. It does not hurt to have a hot temper and 
strong- passions. Mig-hty emotions are the steam 
power behind the great engine; but the steam must 
have the throttle and the g-overnor to reg-ulate and ap- 
ply its efficiency, and the engineer must have his 
hand on the throttle and his eye upon the g-aug-e, else 
the engine will run away, or break, or burst into 
frag-ments. Samson was a Corliss, a Mog-ul engine; 
but the steam power of temper and passion, without 
the will to control and the conscience to reg-ulate and 
the virtue to g-uide, was unthrottled and without 
g-aug*e, and dashed the giant to pieces at the end of 
his sing-ular career. 

4. Prudence. Samson lost that lock with the rest 
of the seven. He was an exceedingly unwise and 
imprudent man. He presumptuously dared his fate 
in almost every instance of history. He was so strong- 



samson's seven locks. 42 9 

*L.*t he thought himself always safe, and so he would 
have been if he had preserved all the other virtues 
of manhood; but left to himself and the force of his 
sinful impulses, his imprudence helped to ruin him. 
It would have destroyed him at Gaza, if God had not 
yet abode with him in the strength of his unshorn 
locks; but when this sin laid his head in the lap of 
Delilah God left him to himself and he was ruined. 
Alas, for the recklessness of sin which always couples 
itself with other elements of ruin when evil goes to 
seed! 

5. Decision was a lock which Sampson also lost. 
Up to the time of his disaster this virtue had never 
forsaken him, even in evil; but when it came to the 
wiles and flatteries of his deceiver he yielded, at last, 
the strength of his manhood into the hands of his 
enemies. Dallying in the lap of lust leads to the 
surrender of that quality in manhood which may, in 
the loss of other qualities, lead to the redemption of 
character; but when from any cause a man's self-de- 
termination yields to sin, the fortress of his character 
is breached and entered. How many a young man 
and woman here, strong and immovable up to a cer- 
tain point, give way at the decisive point; and when 
decision yields, all is lost, and often without recov- 
ery! Even when all else is lost, sometimes decision 
will save and restore the otherwise ruined soul. 

6. Courage. This lock was cut of at last from 
the giant's head. Up to this time he was as brave 
as a lion, but when this lock was cut off his courage 
departed. He went out and shook himself as before, 
but his power was gone; and the man who had 
slaughtered an army was now bound hand and foot 



430 HARP OF LIFE. 

by a couple of men no weaker than he. Oh, what an 
awful weakness it is to be unable to resist your cap- 
tors in evil when once you could have hurled them 
like infants from their grasp upon your soul! Look 
around us at the captives who are chained to the 
stake of lust and drunkenness and avarice and gamb- 
ling- and a hundred other vices; and without a 
struggle now, like Samson bound and blind and 
grinding in the mill, they can offer no resistence! 
Courage is gone with the other lost virtues once in- 
herent in manhood. This lock of strength, like the 
rest, has been clipped off with the sharp scissors of 
vice. 

7. Finally, the lock of Perseverance was cut off 
and Sampson was shorn of the last vestige of power 
that belonged to his peculiar manhood. Amid 
strange and unaccountable inequalities of life, he 
went on in his strength until he went to sleep in the 
lap of ruin. It takes perseverance to keep awake 
and on the way to final success; and it is impossible 
to stop and win the goal of honor and reward. We 
must run with patience the race which is set before us, 
looking neither to the right nor to the left, conferring 
not with flesh nor blood, laying aside every weight 
and the easily besetting sin, and with our eye 
ever fixed upon Jesus Christ, the Author and Finisher 
of our faith. To stop or lie down, or go to sleep in 
the lap of Delilah, often ends the career of honor and 
glory; for when the grace of perseverance ends there 
the grave of success is dug in the life of every can- 
didate for honors and crowns of victory. Oh, how 
many start and run well for a while; but alas, temp- 
tation or opposition frequently determine the stony- 
ground hearer and doer in failure. 



samson's seven locks. 431 

So much for the lost seven locks of Samson. Cut 
either one of these graces out of a man's soul and the 
others will fail him for any good or great end of hu- 
man existence. The figure seven is the symbol of 
perfection; and it took all these seven locks on Sam- 
son's head to bestow the combined powers of his per- 
fect physical manhood. After all, the seven locks 
were but one lock — the hair of his head; and I sup- 
pose to have cut off one of them would have emascu- 
lated him of strength. As a Nazarite, a razor was 
not to touch his head at any point; and to have vio- 
lated God's law in the cutting off of one lock would 
have been just the same as the cutting off of all. So 
with us morally. Take truth away and what will 
become of other virtues for good? or take purity 
away and what will be the force of all the rest? So 
of each of the other seven locks of moral manhood, 
which constitute a unity in the seven- fold strength 
of character. Young people you cannot afford to 
lose a single lock; and when you have lost one you 
either lose all the rest or paralyze the power of all 
the rest. 



The FooL 



A MONG the thing's most dreadful in life are in- 
^^ sanity, imbecility, idiocy, ig-norance — anything* 
which makes a fool. Immorality or poverty or mis- 
fortune may be infinitely worse, but to be a fool, in 
some respects, is the next thing- to being* a knave. 
Ig-norance, incorrigible and wilful ig-norance, is the 
handmaid of iniquity; and out of our stupidit}^ as 
out of our wickedness, come many, if not most, of 
the follies and calamities of human existence. At the 
very best in man wisdom and virtue are short-sig-ht- 
ed ang-els. In spite of learning- and experience, with 
all our f oresig-ht of prudence and caution, we blunder 
along- and fail in life to learn more from our mistakes 
and disappointments than from all our log-ic, wit, or 
sag-acity; but after all the school of experience is 
only the school of the wise, in which the fool never 
learns anything- to profit. Thousands both intellec- 
tually and morally are ever learning- and never com- 
ing- to a knowledg-e of the truth, while thousands 
more never seem to try to learn anything* or know 
and do any better than they have always known and 
done before. 

Now there are all sorts of fools in the world. 
They are as varied and multiform as our tempera- 
ments and casts of mind; and they appear in every 
department and avenue of life. There are fools for 
different reasons, as from different motives; and 




THK FOOL. 



THE FOOI,. 435 

though characterized by the common traits of the 
same genus, yet they are classified according" to 
species, as is the varied family of the horse, the fish, 
or the monkey. No two of them, are exactly alike, 
as there are no two of anything alike; and yet they 
resemble each other as being very close kin in color, 
feature, expression, manner and conduct. There is 
a characteristic fool for every place, calling, or con- 
dition of man in the world; and you cannot go amiss 
for the species, even when you run up against your- 
self. In fact, we are all fools in some respects; and 
the greatest fool in the world is the man or woman 
who thinks everybody else is a fool except him or 
her. This discouraging fact, however, does not pre- 
vent us from analyzing a little, and of sifting out the 
most prominent specimens of the species of which 
every one of us is partly a whim. 

1. There are fools for the sake of money. There 
are professional fools, such as the circus clown, who 
is a base imitation of the old time fool at the king's 
court; or the young "Smart Alex," who poses as the 
"phunny phellow" at the social gathering, and w r ho 
is always invited for the purpose, irrespective of so- 
cial standing or other qualification; or else it is the 
conceited humorist, who feels that he was born, 
called and ordained to make sport for his fellows at 
all times, in all places, and under all circumstances, 
even at a funeral, at church, or in the presence of a 
tragedy as well as a comedy. Of course a funny 
fool is the most innocent of all the species. He 
amuses his fellows and never does any intentional 
harm, for he never has any intentions. His calling 
is not very lofty or laudable, but I rather like the 



436 HARP OP LIPP. 

fool who can, when occasion requires, make us laugh 
and grow fat, even if we have to pay for it; and if 
this was the only kind of fool in the world the hu- 
man race would be infinitely happy. The saddest 
thought about it all is that this sort of fool, like 
most other fools, may be a lost fool; and not being a 
fool for the lack of brains, he comes, under the fear- 
ful condemnation of a severer accountability. 

2. There are fools for the want of sense. You 
can't blame an idiot, a lunatic, or an imbecile — of 
course you can't. The poor fellow who has no brains, 
or whose brains are exhausted or disordered, is to be 
pitied above all the misfortunes of life; but the man 
who has a chance to have sense and doesn't get it, 
ought to be put into the penitentiary instead of the 
asylum. The stupidity of the native born ass is ex- 
cusable; but the mule, or the horse ought to have 
mule or horse sense. In a world with a thousand 
chances for education by observation and experience 
— especially in a land of schools, books, and news- 
papers — ignorance from neglect or incorrigibility is 
a crime; and if a man had never been anywhere, with 
all the facilities of travel we possess, he ought to re- 
solve upon a little expense in order to learn, even if 
by sad experience, away from home. The "sucker" 
is often helped by the "confidence man," or the pick- 
pocket; and it would do a great many people good to 
encounter the mishaps and blunders of the "green- 
horn," while out in the world and among strangers. 

3. There are fools by prejudice. This class of 
fools persist in darkness in spite of light. No reason 
or argument can reach a prejudiced mind, especially 
with a vicious heart, which makes a mountain out of 



the fool. 437 

a mole hill, a tempest in a teapot, and can see a mos- 
quito on top of a steeple and not see the steeple it- 
self. Prejudice never has any use for a telescope 
except at the wrong* end so as to see big- things lit- 
tle. It's peculiar instrument for observation is the 
microscope, which makes little things look big-, and 
by which you can't see anything* big" at all; and it al- 
ways sees black as white and white as black, accord- 
ing to its convenience in the use of spectacles which 
are mostly green. So likewise to its tastes sweet is 
bitter and bitter is sweet with the keenest powers of 
perverted cultivation. Even when it knows the 
truth it holds to it in a partisan spirit; and when it 
clings to an error it would prefer to maintain willful 
ignorance of the truth rather than give up a precon- 
ceived opinion or surrender a prejudged notion of 
men, ideas, or things. 

The prejudiced man deserves the fool-killer worse 
than any other man, and yet it would result in the 
wholesale slaughter of most of the human race. Un- 
fortunately prejudice never sees itself as others see 
it; and there is no way to cure it except by striking 
it upon the blind side. It dreads irony or sarcasm 
or ridicule, but it is a stranger to logic; and about 
the only method of curing this deadly malady is to 
give it the pill of truth coated with sugar. You may 
snare it, but you can never run it down. 

4. Fools from preference. A great many people 
know what right or wrong is, but they follow error or 
unrighteousness from preference, if it is convenient, 
popular, or profitable to do so. It suits taste and 
fancy; and because other people do it, that makes it 
sufficiently right to do likewise. A young lady is 



438 HARP OF UF3. 

dying* daily from the use of the corset, but she pre- 
fers to die rather than be out of the fashion. An- 
other says any sort of religion will do, so you satisfy 
the attenuated conscience of public opinion; and 
therefore you may put in brackets all those unpopu- 
lar doctrines and practices of God's truth that do 
not comport with the liberalistic constructions of 
God's word. Vox fiofiulz is vox dei — do in Rome as 
Romans do; and so the blinded fool goes on down to 
death and the devil worshipping the god of his pre- 
ference under the guise of conscientious policy, or 
propriety, which he loosely fits to the Bible accord- 
ing to the standards of rectitude among men. As in 
fashionable religion, so in dress, pleasure, business, 
profession, and all the affairs of life, the victim of his 
preferences is the fool who construes God and the 
Bible in the light of his inclinations. 

5. The Devil's bald headed fools. "The fool hath 
said in his heart— NO GOD!" It is hardly worth 
while to talk about the fool agnostic, or the fool pan- 
theist, or the fool atheist, or even the fool infidel in 
general. There is no time to waste on the eternal 
fool; but there is a class of fools under this head that 
a word of warning might reach. What a fool is the 
drunkard, who runs daily in the face of God's truth: 
4 ' Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging and he 
that is deceived thereby is not wise!" What an in- 
conceivable fool is the victim of lust, who burns out 
his manhood in the indulgence of passion, in the light 
of God and experience which teach that happiness 
consists largely in the restraint of appetite and de- 
sire! How dreadful the life and fate of that fool 
who perpetually follows the phantoms of his pride 



THE FOOL. 439 

and his ambition — those glorious cheats by which the 
devil beguiles thousands into the forgetfulness of 
God and swindles the soul of its immortality and re- 
ward! How abject the base and materialistic slav- 
ery of that poor fool who bows always at the shrine 
of mammon, robs his God and forgets the curse laid 
upon the "fool," who is rich toward himself and not 
rich towards his Creator and Redeemer! What a 
fool of fools is he who gains the whole world and 
loses his own soul! 

There are a number of other fools too numerous to 
mention, but which could be easily classified and de- 
scribed if we had the time and space to do more than 
mention some of them. There is the self-righteous 
fool, who thinks himself better than other folks and 
congratulates the Lord that there isn't any more like 
him in the world; and the Pharisee is on a par with 
the self-conceited fool, who thinks he "knows it all" 
and that wisdom will die when he dies. The two 
greatest fools perhaps in the world are the gfood iool 
and the wise fool; and next to these two fools is the 
fool by infatuation — for instance, a fellow in love, 
especially an old widower, who when his last wife 
died, six months ago, insisted upon being buried with 
her at the cemetery and was hardly restrained by his 
friends from jumping into the grave. Again, there 
are vanity fools, who love to show themselves and 
swell in public and display their want of brains in 
extravagance of manner and personal decoration; and 
often the peculiar characteristics of such fools are 
seen in the haughty air, the lofty look, the curled 
lip, the upturued proboscis, the magnificent strut 
and the measured vocabulary with which they drawl 



440 HARP OF LIFE. 

before the world in polite and high sounding- asinin- 
ity. (See picture.) 

Perhaps there is no remedy, as a rule, for fools. 
The Bible speaks very hopelessly of fools; and yet 
we must believe, after all; that the Lord takes care 
of some fools. I am thankful that among- the most 
awful maledictions of the Bible the fools are not called 
by name as are drunkards and liars and extor- 
tioners and the like; and yet I see no chance for most 
fools except upon the ground of hopeless or incorigi- 
ble ignorance. I would like very much to give a bit 
of advice to fools; but Solomon said, "Answer a fool 
according to his folly;" and then he said again, "An- 
swer not a fool according to his folly. " My friends, 
I leave the puzzle with you; and the only maxim I 
can lay down is this: Never make the same mistake 
twice; and, oh, fools, there is a chance for you. 



TheTripple Alliance* 



*TpHE} illustration for this sketch presents three 
-*-** sisters, in symbols of vice and crime — drunk- 
enness, Lewdness and Gambling- — and they repre- 
sent the saloon, the brothel, and the gambling- hell. 
They are arm in arm forming- a trinity, or a tripple 
alliance in evil, and are always inseparable in the 
work of damnation. In fact, if permitted, they al- 
ways live in the same house — the saloon on the first 
floor, the brothel up stairs, and the gambling- hell in 
the basement; but however separated as to walls, or 
space, they know where each other lives, and they 
regularly consort with each other, inseparable in 
sympathy and co-operation, and banded together by 
kindred ties and natural affinity. They are of the 
same blood and stock; and yet they do not love each 
other, nor is there any bond of friendship between 
them, except for the common purpose of evil. As in 
the picture, drunkenness is the victim of lewdness, 
and gambling will take the last nickel from either. 
Drunkenness carries the cup of intoxication and mad- 
nes; lewdness holds the dagger of death and destruc- 
tion; gambling presents the card pack of fate — the 
hazard of life and all its pleasures and treasures 
upon the cast of the die or the lot of venture and 
speculation. Put the three sisters and their symbols 
together and you have the synthesis of evil out of its 
worst forms combined; and while it maybe true that 

(443) 



444 HARP OF LIFE. 

they often work death and damnation separately, yet 
it is in their co-operation that the most effective and 
deadly results upon society follow. 

The truth is, if you kill one of these sisters you 
kill the other two. The same spirit of evil which sus- 
tains the one in power, or position, is that which 
maintains the other. Especially is it true that if 
you could kill drunkenness — destroy the saloon — you 
would ultimately destroy the other two, at least in 
their institutional or corporate form. A sober peo- 
ple will be a virtuous people; and a sober and vir- 
tuous people will not gamble. Drunkenness is not 
only the victim of lewdness and gambling-, but she is 
the fosterer and promoter of both, as both are the 
fosterer and promoter of her; and if you could destroy 
the drink business in this country it would not be 
long before a brothel or gambling place of any kind 
would be unknown. Vice will always exist, but it 
cannot flourish except by the wine cup or the whisky 
bottle. The history of lewdness and gambling is in- 
separably connected with drunkenness, in every age 
and country; and the debaucheries and crimes which 
have cursed the human race have mostly been the 
offspring of this tripple alliance between these three 
sisters, born of the devil out of hell, and fired with 
the furious and hasty work of human damnation. 

Why are these three sisters permitted to live, to 
dress up daily and walk the streets of our cities in the 
light of the civilization of the nineteenth century — nay, 
to have corporate and institutional existence and an 
abiding place in which to carry on business, either 
licensed or permitted, and protected, or winked at, 
by the laws of our country? This is the amazing 



THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE. 445 

and startling question of the day; and its considera- 
tion and discussion constitute one of the issues of 
the nineteenth century, and at its very close. 

The argument in favor of these three institutions 
of vice, symbolized by these three sisters of evil, is 
based upon the doctrine of ' 'necessary evil;" and it is 
furthermore founded upon the theory that they must 
be licensed, or permitted, as a lesser evil to prevent 
a greater. It is better, it is held, to license and reg- 
ulate these vices openly than to risk them in society, 
and depend on education, religion, and law for their 
cure and suppression. The argument is plausible, 
but I am satisfied it never emanated from the spirit 
of philanthropy or philosophy, and certainly not from 
religion. It comes from that wish in the wicked 
heart which is father to the thought of what is called 
''practical politics" — take things as you find them, 
and do the best you can under the existing conditions 
— but which is made the plea and the excuse for all 
the villainy perpetrated in the name of political econ- 
omy. There are thousands of men in high places, on 
the bench, at the bar of justice, in the legislator's 
chair, occupying high and low official position, be- 
hind the counter, in business, in society, and in the 
church, respectable and influential enough, but too 
corrupt to inaugurate or enforce laws which militate 
against vices of which they are secretely guilty, or 
with which they sympathize, or about which they are 
indifferent, or which they regard as necessary to 
business, or political preferment, or * 'essential to a 
lively civilization!" That's what's the matter with 
our country! 

Take the city of Nashville. It is needless to say 



446 HARP OF LIFE. 

that a city of 100,000 people, with nearly a hundred 
churches, with five universities, six female colleges, 
fourteen public schools, a number of private schools, 
a host of benevolent societies, a number of scientific, 
artistic, and musical institutions and the like — it is 
useless to say that w^ith all these intellectual and 
moral forces, coupled with good and sufficient laws, 
these three great institutions of vice could live here 
without the sanction, or the apathy, of men — I will 
not say women — in high places. Nobody believes that 
the vicious classes alone and unaided could sustain 
these institutions in Nashville, much less in the State 
of Tennessee. There are not a sufficient number of 
disreputable drunkards, libertines, and gamblers in 
Nashville, or anywhere else in our country, to main- 
tain the saloon, the brothel, or any form of corporate 
gambling, if men in higher and more responsible 
places were not, directly or indirectly, the support of 
these vicious and damnable institutions. Surely it 
would be otherwise impossible for them to violate 
the Sunday laws and even the very laws which are 
made to make their existence possible and to protect 
them. 

I am well aware, too, of those other arguments, or 
sophistries, which afford so many excuses to the 
elastic consciences of those who, while they do not 
directly espouse the cause of these three sisters and 
their tripple alliance, yet for the purposes of lust or 
policy, wink at or support them. They hold to the 
doctrine of ' 'personal liberty" and of "personal re- 
sponsibility," of "self-sustaining character," and 
that "every tub should stand on its own bottom." 
"I am not my brother's keeper," they say; and this 



THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE:. 447 

maxim translated is this: "Let every man take 
care of himself, and let the devil catch the hind- 
most.'' "O Lord, bless me and nry wife, my son 
John and his wife, us four and no more!" It is the 
plea and the prayer of selfishness in which thousands 
excuse themselves from political and moral contests, 
and by which they keep away from the polls and 
from discussion and "attend to their own business!" 
Worse than all, they are constantly crying* out: 
"David wasn't a saint by any means, Noah got 
drunk, and you can't run city government on Sun- 
day school principles; they gambled over the Saviour's 
vesture," and so on. "The millennium," they say, 
"hasn't come;" and, like the devil, they quote Scrip- 
ture for a purpose and suppose, in the light of God's 
word, their darkness and their delusion are turned 
into sunshine and reality, forgetting that they are 
only given over in their self-deception to believe the 
lie they cherish, and to be damned. Aye, they don't 
want the millennium to come. They are glad that 
David sinned and Noah got drunk; and they thank 
God in blasphemy that there was an example of 
gambling over the vesture of the agonizing Son of 
God! What awful blasphemy to use such arguments 
as an excuse for perpetuating and fostering these 
three monster institutions of vice and crime! 

But now let me explode these so-called arguments, 
especially the one based upon the theory of "neces- 
sary evil," and that it is better to license and police 
an evil than to risk a greater evil upon society in the 
hope of suppressing it by education, religion, and 
law. Is the brothel which constantly recruits its 
victims from the ranks of society any protection to 



448 HARP OF UFB. 

society ? Is the saloon which everywhere manufac- 
tures drunkards and drunkard's families any protec- 
tion to society ? Is the gambling- hell, in any form, 
better for society than private gambling- punishable 
by law ? If this theory be true of these institutions 
of vice, why not thus regulate pistol carrying and 
thievery and murder and opium dens, counterfeiting 
and the like? Prohibition does not prohibit them, 
and why not let them all organise into gangs or 
clubs, have their well known places of abode, and put 
them under police surveillance and regulation in order 
to lessen and ameliorate their depredations upon 
society ? These forms of vice and crime are not half 
so destructive to society as the saloon, the brothel, 
or the gambling hell, even under the form of the pool 
room, the bucket shop, the race track, and other sim- 
ilar ways of respectable and business-like robbery. 
Why not organ 1 ' ze wolves and rattlesnakes into 
dens and gangs and restrict them so that they will 
only be allowed, under certain forms of public dep- 
redation, to devour your sheep and bite your children? 
It is true that fetty gambling is prohibited by 
law. The crap shooter and his like have no place 
of abode. Why ? Because it interferes with busi- 
ness! It isn't a question of morals or society, of the 
immortal soul, of intellect or body, but of the pocket 
book interests of the community ; and so soon as the 
bank or the-store or the medicine shop makes a protest 
and demands a law against certain forms of gam- 
bling, why then the legislator and the judge and the 
police come to the rescue, at least apparently and 
occasionally ! Not so with higher forms of gambling, 
however, which are regarded in the light of business, 



ths triple allianck. 449 

but which are a thousand times worse than crap 
shooting-. Not so with the saloon, which is held as 
a business and the headquarters of political party- 
ism, and which, while it destroys the best moral and 
material interests of a community, is the convenient 
hole where the worst elements of society find a 
social resort and a place for baser purposes. Not so 
with the brothel or the lewd house which, while it 
is not licensed, is permitted to exist and winked at as 
a "necessary evil" for the protection of society 
against a greater evil which it is supposed would 
occur, but really which could not live but for the 
sympathy or patronage of those who live in high 
places. I know of nobody in a city who has more 
friends than a prominent or popular bad woman ; 
and I know of no one who can more readily evade the 
the law and escape punishment at the hands of jus- 
tice when guilty. 

Finally, you ask me : " What is your remedy ?" 
I say, never license an institution set up for evil, or 
which works evil. It is bad education to any rising* 
generation to legalise vice and then try to punish it 
for crime ; and I want to say that when you tax an 
evil to restrict it you take ' ' blood money " and estab- 
lish the sentiment and the spirit among- the young 
that you may do evil that good may come and make 
a profit out of it. It is the base and ignominious 
idea of selling indulgence. My theory is to prohibit 
vice and crime of every dangerous form by law ; and 
such a law is not only protection against evil, but it 
is in itself a good educator of every rising generation. 
Drive every monster vice which violates moral law 
and which damages society to hide its head out of 



450 HARP OF LIFK. 

sight, and when it comes to the front in any form, 
chop it off with the ax of the law. You say that it 
takes public sentiment to make such laws and to exe- 
cute them ; and I say that we have the sentiment if 
we would only wake it up and put it to work. 
Destroy the brothel and the assignation house and 
then legislate so as to hang- the seducer and the 
abducter of virtue — just as you do the rapist and 
the murderer — and in the place of the evil institu- 
tion set up the workhouse and the refuge for the 
fallen. Destroy the saloon, and then if men will 
make and drink whisky, punish drunkenness and its 
consequences as crimes against society, just as you 
do pistol carrying, thievery, and other forms of vio- 
lence in the country. Destroy every form of gam- 
bling, of getting something for nothing, of robbery 
by consent, and require every man to make an honest 
livelihood in the sweat of his face ; and just as you 
punish vagrancy in the poor devil who has nothing 
and is nobody, so punish gambling, idleness, and ras- 
cality! Don't establish or permit institutions to set 
up for evil by law or license. This is my theory and 
remedy. 



Ox in the Ditch. 



(QOME people put the ox in the ditch on Saturday 
^-^ in order to take him out on Sunday. There is 
lying- to the Holy Ghost in more ways than one, and 
this ox-in-the-ditch business is but another specimen 
of that common sin of fooling- yourself in trying- to 
fool God. If God practiced among- us now as he did 
with Ananias and Sapphira we would attend funer- 
als every day, and our ranks would be decimated 
every year; for no sin is more frequent or plausible 
than that device by which multitudes of professors 
ditch the ox beforehand that they may pull him out 
when duty calls to the work of the Master on the 
holy Sabbath day, or at other times of appointed 
service. 

This sin arises from the habit of making- the ser- 
vice of God a secondary consideration instead of a 
matter of first importance. To make the kingdom 
of God and his rig-hteousness "first" — paramount 
over every other consideration — is to reach a very 
rare development in grace; and the rule of most pro- 
fessors, in view of selfish and secular considerations, 
is to make God's cause about the thirteenth item of 
importance. This assumption ma}^ look somewhat 
extreme, but it does not fall very far short of the 
mark with what may be called church member pro- 
fession. The handful of Christ's followers who are 
always on hand, and who bear the burden and heat 

(453) 



454 HARP OF UFE. 

of the day, may be counted on your fingers in most 
churches; and if your fingers are too few for enu- 
meration, just add your toes, and charity will prevent 
any stretch of the blanket of veracity. Upon the 
great average of fidelity and devotion to the cause of 
Christ, the prayer meeting is the guage of religious 
interest in the church; and taking this as the stand- 
ard of a "number one" concern for God's kingdom 
and righteousness, three-fourths of the professors of 
religion do not believe Matt. 6:33 — which please read. 
The excuses rendered, the pretenses offered, for de- 
linquency in Christian duty would make a perjurer 
blush in a modern court of justice where lying has 
become common; and up yonder in that court of jus- 
tice where we all have to appear, it will be horrible 
if some professors have to view the cyclorama of 
their excuses and pretenses made in this world for 
shorfr comings in duty. Among other things how 
often that old ox in the ditch will bob up as some 
have to take the periscope of past life! Better tell 
the truth now, or keep silent about your delinquences 
than go up to the judgment of God from the church 
so full of lies that you will burst wide open at the 
touch of a cambrick needle, when God comes to punc- 
ture your religious record. 

The ox in the ditch may have a wider application 
than the mere Sunday limits of this illimitable lie. 
The ox gets into the ditch on prayer meeting, or 
conference night; and so when it comes to family de- 
votion, Bible reading, religious conversation, giving, 
or personal efforts for Christ, somethiug gets in the 
way. We have not the time, to say nothing of the 
lack of gifts, abilities, and means, when duty calls; 



OX IN THE DITCH. 455 

and yet we have time, tongue, cheek, ability, and will 
for any and everything* else we want to be or do. 
No matter how far it is, distance never gets in the 
way when we wish to go anywhere for personal 
pleasure or profit; but if the church is just across 
the street, it is like going to the North pole to get 
there, if our heart is not among the people of God. 
It is not far to the theater, or to the dance hall, or 
to the political meeting, or to the parade, or to busi- 
ness, though you have to walk a mile; but alas, the 
church, or the sick saint, or the lost sinner, though 
next door to you, had as well be in Guinea, if the 
love of God is not in your heart! Africa, China, and 
India are within a stone's throw of the missionary 
spirit; and the church, the sick neighbor, and the lost 
sinner are at the very door of your heart when the 
door is open. Dimes are always scarce and as big 
as dollars when you don't want to give; but when 
the soul is open to the cry of Christ's cause, dollars 
become dimes, and are as plentiful as blackberries in 
June. You are tongue-tied and lock-jawed when 
you have no heart for Christ; but when the heart is 
full, your tongue is loose at both ends, and your jaws 
vibrate with oily and irrepressible eloquence and 
energy. How loquacious and voluminous you are, 
brother, about politics, corn, cotton, dry goods, pic- 
nics, dogs, horses, or about the shortcomings and 
sins of your neighbors! Nothing gets in the way — 
the ox never gets in the ditch — when you are pleased, 
interested, or profited, in the affairs of this or the 
world to come. 

This ox-in-the-ditch business takes a variety of 
shapes and phases, not only on Sunday, but upon every 
other dav of the week. 



456 HARP OF UFE. 

1. There is the Sunday newspaper that must be 
taken and read every Sunday morning with its sala- 
cious repast of editorials and articles on all subjects, 
good, bad, and indifferent. Murders, suicides, dis- 
asters, scandals, and outrages; baseball, races, and 
theaters; society events, "cock and bull stories," and 
foreign wars; social, political, and religious events; 
and a vast and varied display of advertisements — all 
this bill of fare must be consumed by the reader of the 
Sunday newspaper. There is no time for the Bible, 
prayer, Sunday school, or church, with thousands 
who claim that they have no other time than Sunday 
for reading and information; and hence they plunge 
this ox in the ditch before breakfast and try to pull 
him out by dinner. Not infrequently the story 
paper, or the novel, or other literary trash, is added 
to this ox-in-the-ditch menu; and by the time this 
literary meal is served and eaten, there is neither 
time nor place for the spiritual feast of worship and 
service at God's house. 

2. Then comes the big Sunday dinner, another ox 
in the ditch. By the time the Sunday ox ditcher gets 
through picking his intellectual teeth with his literary 
quill, he is prepared to ditch another ox into the ca- 
pacious receptacle of his fleshly greed. By this time 
his physical appetite has been whetted by the exhaus- 
tive exertions of his intellectual maw. The chil- 
dren may have gone to Sunday school, but Sister Sal- 
lie had to stay at home to get dinner for his lordship, 
the head of the family, or else to superintend the 
servants who sweat and toil over the Sunday ox — the 
baking of pies and things, the freezing of ice cream, 
and so on. Brother John Thomas says that he works 



OX IN THE DITCH. 457 

hard all the week — has no other time to read, or eat 
good thing's — and that he is entitled to this big- Sun- 
day dinner. It is the ox in the ditch — that is, in the 
pot — and there is no getting around it on Sunday; 
and so he not only stays at home from church, when 
he might have gone as well, but keeps everybody 
else at home he can to cook his dinner ox-in-the 
ditch. 

3. Now in the afternoon Brother John has another 
ox in the ditch. He is very tired and must have a 
nap; or he is very social and must have company; or 
else he is very restless and must have a ride to see 
his neighbors or his kinfolks in the country. He 
never has any other time for social or family life, 
even at church; and Sunday afternoon is the great 
occasion for the cultivation of his conversational and 
social powers. He can talk upon any subject but 
religion; and Sunday afternoon is an excellent time 
to discuss business, farming", politics, pleasure, and 
neighborhood gossip — perhaps debate about baptism 
— but never a word about missions, Sunday schools, 
prayer meetings, lost souls, or spiritual religion. 
The Sunday afternoon ox in the ditch, and Brother 
John Thomas takes until night to get him out. 
What a fine time our Sunday afternoons are for talk- 
ing, courting, joking, laughing, gossiping, and 
blatherskiting! No time for the afternoon mis- 
sion, or visiting the poor, or for other useful work in 
the service of Christ. Brother John Thomas leaves 
all this for the "good folks" in the church to do. He 
must have recreation. 

4. Then Brother John Thomas has a Sunday night 
ox in the ditch. It is too hot or too cold, too wet or 



458 HARP OF LIFE. 

too dry, to go to church; but, whether or not, he has 
no heart to visit God's house, unless perchance there 
is somewhere a song- service, or a pragmatic exer- 
cise, or other Sunday night entertainment, gotten 
up in order to draw a congregation where the gospel 
has ceased to get a crowd. He is often at the 
theater, never misses a political meeting, always 
goes to the parade, is diligent in business, fervent 
at dinner, and loud in society ; and it is possible to 
draw him to church at night once in a while, if he 
can be entertained. Otherwise Brother John is too 
utterly tired to worship God or be bored with the 
gospel on Sunday night. Sallie and the servants 
washed dishes till three o'clock; and by the time night 
comes they are ready for bed, unless company arrives 
to sit till bedtime, or until church is out. The cook 
is about the only one of the family who goes to 
church at night. The negroes never begin service un- 
til late ; and, thank God, they seem never to get too 
tired, on Sunday or in the week, to go to church. 

5. It is needless to say that Brother John Thomas 
always has a weekday ox in the ditch, especially 
on Wednesday night, when the prayer meeting 
is on hand. He may go to church for appearance 
sake, once a quarter, or semi-annually, on Sun- 
day ; but to the prayer, or business, meeting, never. 
Works too hard all day for that. Sallie and the 
children may go, but Brother John swallows his sup- 
per, reads the evening paper, and goes to bed— -that 
is, if he doesn't go to the lodge, or the club, or to 
some other gathering which pleases him. He is a 
good Mason, Democrat, or business man. He could 
not afford to lose his place in the world, or among 



OX IN THE DITCH. 459 

his friends ; but he thinks that God and the brethren 
are able to take care of the church. So far as the 
conference or prayer meeting is concerned, he is too 
tired to go. In fact, Brother John Thomas has no 
time to pray in the week, for the business or pleasure 
ox is in the ditch. 

6. Brother John Thomas also always has a finan- 
cial ox in the ditch. Much or little, he always has 
some money for everything- he wants, or is interested 
in. He pays his taxes, he keeps up his dues in the 
lodge, takes his family to the circus, but feels no 
obligation to pay his subscription to the church, or 
give anything to missions. The ox in the ditch 
takes the shape of poverty— horns, hoofs, and all — 
when it comes to the cause of Christ ; and this is 
one ox in the ditch which the good brother never 
gets out, although he appears to be pulling at his 
tail all the days of his life. He is down on mis- 
sions, foreign missions, any way ; and he thinks the 
preacher, and his family, and his horse, ought to 
live on vinegar and shavings. Alas, poor Brother 
John Thomas ! How would he feel, if he should get 
to heaven, and wear a crown of gold, and sit upon a 
throne, and have a harp of a thousand strings put in 
his hands? 

7. When all other oxen fail, Brother John has one 
old long-horned, shaggy-tailed, scrawny ox which 
he has plunged into the ditch so often that he stays 
covered with mud all the time. His name is " Sick- 
ness " — sickness in the family, or sick himself ! He 
may have had to post his books, mend his harness, 
read the papers, visit his friends, look after the crop, 
or otherwise break the Sabbath — but when you see 



460 HARP OF LIFE. 

him he was " sick" or somebody else was sick. 
When he goes North to buy goods he starts on Sat- 
urday night in order to save a day in business ; but 
if his pastor were to meet him in New York Mon- 
day morning-, he would swear that he was sick on 
Sunday. He is a healthy business man, but is very 
bilious toward religious duty ; and though always 
sick on Sunday, he would put the ox of business into 
the ditch every Lord's day if the laws of the coun- 
try allowed him — whatever the state of his health 
as to religion. 

In conclusion, the tendency of the age is to pur- 
posely ditch the ox on Sunday. Railroads, street 
cars, excursions, saloons, theaters, huckster stands, 
barber shops, and many forms of business in manu- 
facture and commerce, violate the sanctity of God's 
day under the. specious plea of "necessity," and 
under the sanction of public sentiment and law. 
Our country presents the universal aspect of the 
Sunday ox in the ditch ; and we have reached the 
day when a desecrated Sabbath is one of the perilous 
crimes of a great nation. It is enough to pull the 
ox out of the ditch when he falls in himself, but the 
infidel and sacreligious tendency of our country to put 
him in in order to take him out under the provisions of 
law is one of the most ominous indications of evil in the 
day we live. Christ is the " Lord of the Sabbath," 
which was "made for man " — for man's universal 
good — and we are commanded to reverence and keep 
it holy. We ought to be allowed a respectable legal 
Sabbath, at least ; and when our government strikes 
down the Sabbath, she takes a long stride in educat- 
ing the people to go further in ditching the Sunday 



OX IN THE DITCH. 461 

ox for themselves. Legislation is education in one 
of its most effective forms ; and every citizen in this 
great republic — especially the children and youth of 
every generation — are being taught to disregard the 
Lord's day under the specious and wicked plea of 
"necessity," set up by legislation in favor of certain 
privileged classes. 

What remedy have we against the Sunday ox in 
the ditch ? The only hope of a respectable Sabbath 
rests now with the people of God in this country. 
Let us who believe the Bible and follow Christ cease 
to put the ox in the ditch on Saturday in order to 
take him out on Sunday. Let God's people quit 
working and traveling and frolicking on Sunday. 
It is only through Christian example that God can 
speak to the world in the thunder tones of Sinai, or 
in the still, small voice of Calvary. It may be said 
that thousands of Christians are so employed as to 
be compelled to work on the Sabbath. The ox is in 
the ditch with them, and they cannot help themselves, 
except to quit business and starve. I do not wish to 
be considered ultra or austere in my views of the 
Sabbath, but I do not believe that God's children are 
compelled to enter any form of business in violation 
of God's law, in order to live. This is the argu- 
ment of the saloonist and the follower of every bad 
or doubtful business ; but the people of God in all 
ages have been willing to submit to martyrdom 
rather than violate their conscience in violating 
" the faith delivered once for all to the saint." None 
of us arc, obliged to live, anyway ; and certainly none 
of us are obliged to live wrong. 

Again, I believe that if the people of God, undi- 



462 HARP OF LIFE. 

vided in sentiment and united in purpose, would rise 
up and protest against a legally violated Sabbath, 
they could stop every Sunday train, and street car, 
and saloon, and open shop, and public amusement, 
which now desecrate God's holy day. How dare 
this, or any other nation, tolerate, much less legis- 
late, this God defying, and race corrupting, and 
soul destroying crime ! In Toronto and other cities, 
the people fill the churches on Sunday. Not a wheel 
turns, not a saloon or huckster stand, or barber shop 
opens in these cities on the Sabbath. The law of 
the Sabbath, as a day of rest and worship, is legally 
observed ; and not a man, nor a beast, is compelled 
to work by merciless corporation or individual ; and 
cities like Toronto flourish and prosper as models 
of the very highest and most progressive civilization. 
If every wheel, and spindle, and furnace, and yard 
stick, on ihe continent should stop one day in seven, 
; t would not set civilization back an inch, nor hurt 
business a farthing, nor deteriorate pleasure a jot or 
tittle. On the contrary, it would brighten the mind, 
rest the body, enhance morality, sweeten home, 
build the church, strengthen law and order, cool 
down machinery, lengthen life, increase wealth, 
bless and prosper our nation with a real and perma- 
nent development. Six days' work, and one day's 
rest, for all men is God's economy, all wise and per- 
fect ; and when this economy is reversed by putting 
the Sunday ox in the ditch, we know not the ultimate 
outcome of inwrought evil and ruin which we blindly 
and gradually incorporate in the life of individuals 
and nations by the prostitution of God's law. The 
Sunday ox in the ditch under the theory of " public 



OX IN THE DITCH. 463 

necessity," whether as a nation or as individuals we 
manufacture it, is a great lie to God and a demoral- 
izing" deception to ourselves. We had better have no 
Sabbath at all than a universally prostituted Sab- 
bath. 



OCT 11 1899 



